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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION,
AND
ITS INFLUENCE ON THE CHARACTER
AND HAPPINESS OF WOMEN.
BY
Anne
Eliza
EMILY SHIRREFF,
ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THOUGHTS ON SELF-CULTURE.'

ASPARK
HO
M
LONDON :
া
ARDUH
JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.
1858.
[The Author reserves the right of translation.]
LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
:
N
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL VIEWS
pp. 1-30
Importance attached to education in the present day, I; Neglect of
principles, 3; Objects of liberal and professional education con-
founded, 5; Consequences to those classes to whom knowledge
brings no worldly advancement, 6; One great purpose of education,
7; Two evils resulting from forgetting that purpose-First, Seve-
rance of intellectual and moral training, 9; Second, Knowledge loved
only for its market value, 15; Consequences of the misuse of
leisure, 18; Over-value for professional occupation, 18; Preparation
for life and real life, 20; Those who have most leisure need most
education, 23; Women should keep up the disinterested love of
knowledge, 26; Frivolity compatible with information as a fashion,
27; Effects to be expected from a spread of real mental cultivation,
28; Women require higher education precisely because they have no
outward necessity to labour, 29.
CHAPTER II.
APPLICATION OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES TO FEMALE EDUCATION, pp. 31-88
Section 1.-Education of girls more difficult than that of boys, 32; Con-
sciously or unconsciously, parents must educate their children, 34;
A mother's studies, 35; Without a definite purpose, real education
impossible, 39; Practical education for different classes, 41; Short
period of female education as compared with that of men, 42; Years
telling differently on men and women, 44; Twofold task of edu-
cation, 46; Limits of this work, 49.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Section 2, p. 50; Objects of intellectual education-grammar and geome-
try, 51; Value of even slight acquaintance with mathematics, 55;
Physical science left out in female education, 57; Difficulty of
selection for a slight course, 59; Natural history, 60; Astronomy,
61; Geology, 62; Physiology, 63; Scientific reading-discipline of
the reasoning power, 65; Study of language, 65; Comparison of
different languages, 67; anguage as the instrument of reasoning,
69; Our native language alone essential, 71; Imagination, 72 ;
Historical reading, 74; Value of a course of elementary studies is
its method, 78; Difference between small and superficial knowledge,
79; Variety of pursuit desirable on many accounts for women, 80.
Section 3, p. 82; The mind of the teacher is of more importance than
any means of instruction, 83; With girls, teacher is synonymous
with mother, 84; Narrow means need not prevent sound education,
85; Difference between homely cares and homely tastes, 87.
CHAPTER III.
MORAL TRAINING AND INFLUENCE OF HEALTH UPON CHARACTER,
pp. 89-173
Section 1, p. 89; General remarks on moral training-value of a diary
of education, 91; Moral training ought to be begun from early
childhood, 92; Faults best combated by cultivating opposite qualities,
93; Immense power of association, 94; Neglected in education, 97.
Section 2.-Love of truth, 98; Faults that tend towards creating
indifference to exact truth, 101; Sincerity does not lead to disregard
of the feelings of others, 103; Difficult cases, 104; Moral courage
necessary for truthfulness, 108; Acting upon a sense of duty, IIO;
Promising element in the character of obstinate children, 112; Con-
sistency in parents most necessary, 113; Love of justice, 114; Love
of intellectual truth, 117.
Section 3.-Faults of temper: violence, 118; Sullen and peevish tem-
pers, 121; Habit of complaining, 123; Good-humour with diffi-
culties, 125.
Section 4.-Gentleness, 127; Selfishness, 129; Correctives of habits of
usefulness, 132:
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
V
Section 5.-Cheerfulness, 135; Religion not always a source of cheer-
fulness, 139; Quick sensibility yielding to emotion, 141; Love of
strong emotion, 143; Deference to opinion, 145; Vanity, 148.
Section 6.-Health influencing mental condition, 151; Curious case
of temper, 155; Necessity of different treatment with different
children-value of a physician's opinion, 157; Another case, 159;
Importance of watching moral symptoms with regard to the brain,
161; Cases of illness prompting deceit, 163; Women's occupations
and mode of life not favourable to health, 166; All these con-
siderations grow in importance as childhood passes into youth, 170;
Girls should be prepared for the trials of delicate health, 172.
EARLY TEACHING
CHAPTER IV.
pp. 174-202
Folly of working the brain of children, 175; No lessons till seven years
old, 177; Children's books-love of reading, 179; What a girl should
have learnt before twelve years old, 182; Needlework, 185; Practical
training, 187; Information gained apart from lessons, 190; Essential
habits, 191; Reasons for not entering into the subject of religious
teaching, 192.
CHAPTER V.
STUDIES AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT FROM TWELVE YEARS OF AGE TO
FOURTEEN
pp. 203-263
Section 1.—Recapitulation, 203; Division of studies, 204; Early rising,
205; Division of the day, 206; Arithmetic, 207; Geometry, 209;
Advantage of learning Latin and Greek, 210; Method of learning
modern languages, 214; Outlines of history, 219; Geography and
chronology, 221; Benefits to be derived from conversation, 226.
Section 2.-Art of reading, 228; Causes of careless reading, 231;
Kindling the desire to know and understand, 232; Different mode
of dealing with difficulties, 236; Inattention, 237; Mental indolence,
240; Originality and the want of it, 243; Care required when two
sisters differ much in ability, 244; Cultivation of the memory, 246.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Section 3.-Difficulties of education arising from small means, 254;
Training in practical matters, 256.
Section 4.-Value of holidays, 258; Beneficial influence of each sex on
the other, 261.
CHAPTER VI.
STUDIES AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT FROM FOURTEEN YEARS OF AGE
TO SIXTEEN
pp. 264-329
Section 1.-Hours of study, 264; Relative value of accomplishments,
266; Divisions of studies, 271; Natural history and physiology,
273; Geology, 274; Astronomy, 275; Language and literature,
276; Composition, 281; Good conversation, 282.
Section 2.-Notes from reading, 285; No system too laborious that
ensures success, 289; Habit of thinking, 289; Diaries, 291.
Section 3.-Strength of character, 292; Difference of home and school
authority, 296; Gentleness and firmness, 297; Preparing the young
for self-regulation, 299; Sacredness of resolutions, 305; Method
applied to the regulation of daily life, 307; Expenditure, 311;
Amusements, 314; Love of reading-choice of books, 315; Danger
of exciting pleasure, 321; Cultivation of the means of happiness,
323; Confirmation, 328.
CHAPTER VII.
STUDIES AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT FROM SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE TO
EIGHTEEN.
pp. 330-391
Section 1.-Division of time, 330; Gradual introduction into society,
332; Formation of opinions, 334; Mode of judging opinions, 337;
Prevalence of scepticism, 340; Practical moral principles, 341;
Doubt inevitable, 343; Borrowed opinions, 345; Influence of parents
in the formation of opinions, 346; Books to be consulted, 347;
Difficulties of language-use of logic, 349; Method of pursuing
inquiries, 351; Subjects for study, 353; Why women should make
history a special study, 355; Political economy, 356; Method of
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
vii
reading history, 358; Ancient history, 360; Modern history-periods
to be studied, 363; Progress of opinion and knowledge, 366; Works
to be read, 369; Time required for the proposed course, 373.
Section 2, p. 377; Modifications if necessary-expense of education, 383.
Section 3.-Father's influence, 385; Advantage to girls of a high ap-
preciation of manly character, 389.
CHAPTER VIII.
SOME PECULIARITIES OF WOMAN'S SOCIAL POSITION
PP. 392-424
When school-room education is closed, what is to follow? 392; Peculiar
mental trials owing to an inactive life, 393; Two classes of minds
incapable of intellectual excitement-First, The practical, 394 ;
Second, The homely, 397; Trial is felt when girls do not marry
young, 399; A London season, 402; Frivolity not confined to the
fashionable, 404; Consequences of an unoccupied life, 405; Need-
less restraint on unmarried daughters, 408; This system encourages
thoughtless marriages, 410; Girls should be educated to look forward
to single life, 414; Low views of marriage and of the character of
men, 414; Employments for women-difficulties, 417; Competition
with men, 420; Foolish tone in asserting women's claims, 421;
Nature marks the relative position of men and women, 422.
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL VIEWS.
EW subjects have attracted more attention in the
FEW
present day than that of education, and on few
subjects also has public opinion undergone more change
within a comparatively short period. The old pre-
judices which so long opposed it, have been abandoned
one by one, and we seem in more danger of looking
upon classes and class books as the panacea for all
national evils, than of disputing the universal necessity
of education. Discussion now turns on a more per-
plexed and complicated question, namely, what shall
the education be? And there is but one way of deciding
that point, which is by first establishing what is the
ultimate purpose of education. To judge from debates
in Parliament, discussions on competitive examinations,
plans for popular instruction, &c., we are far enough
from having come generally to any clear views on that
point.
It is not my purpose to enter into those wide and
intricate questions of national education and the results
of school and college training, but the tone of opinion
prevalent concerning them affects also female education
in every class.
The same errors which there give rise
to such interminable disputes clog our progress also,
B
૭
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
and make mental cultivation among women a question
of fashion or individual taste.*
The source of these errors I believe to be the habit
of looking upon intellectual education as simply the
means of
of imparting knowledge, without inquiring
whether it has not also a work to perform in disciplining
the mind, in impressing on it those habits and tenden-
cies which in youth the half-developed nature is docile
to receive, and which give to the man the full command
of his faculties for whatever future labour he may un-
dertake. Perhaps a glance at some points in the
history of intellectual education in modern times may
enable us to perceive how this view was obscured even
while more and more attention was given to the sub-
ject generally.
What were the views of education held by those
great men who, in the first dawn of modern civiliza-
tion, established the system of University studies, it is
difficult now to determine. The question was very
simple then compared to what it has become since.
During many ages learning consisted solely in the
knowledge of what the Greeks and Latins had done.
* The opinions advocated in the present work, and especially the
general principles of education which are considered in this and the fol-
lowing chapter, have already been set forth and explained in their refe-
rence to woman's life and influence in a former work-Thoughts on Self-
Culture, addressed to Women, by MARIA GREY and EMILY SHIRREFF.
I trust, however, that the different scope and purpose of my present un-
dertaking may cause a partial return over the same ground, and save me
from the charge of mere repetition. We then addressed ourselves to
young girls, with a view of assisting them in their attempts at self-im-
provement; I now address mothers wishing to undertake the education
of their daughters, and often too young and inexperienced and too care-
lessly educated themselves to know the full extent of the task before
them. But in both works alike it was necessary to start from those
same principles which lie at the foundation of all education deserving of
the name.
INCREASED NECESSITY OF KNOWLEDGE.
3
before us, and of the theology of the Fathers. There
could be no doubt then that this information was indis-
pensable to every man pretending to education. But as
time went on the boundaries of knowledge enlarged
more and more. Modern languages and literatures
sprang up by the side of those ancient languages to
which men had so long devoted all their energies as to
the sole depositaries of science and philosophy. Physical
science began to rear its giant growth, and drew off the
minds of multitudes from the old paths of scholastic.
learning. The relations of society became more nume-
rous and complicated. New interests, distant under-
takings, and far-reaching commerce, gave an extension
to political science and jurisprudence which rendered
necessary an amount of information undreamed of in
earlier times; while the accumulation of wealth, the
immense increase of population, the spread of luxury,
made life a fierce competition to all who could not
afford idleness, and men felt more and more that their
success must depend on the activity of their brains and
on the available resources of their knowledge.
One consequence of these great changes was a dis-
position to examine the old uniform system of educa-
tion, and to ask whether it could still be considered fit
for times of progress. And here the error began under
whose evil influence we are still labouring-error, not
in proposing the question, but in the method of con-
sidering it. The public mind, newly awakened to the
value of knowledge, cared little about principles of edu-
cation. The inquiry into the value of the established
systems was solely directed to the obvious results of
book knowledge attained at a given age; and that was
manifestly inadequate to the exigencies of modern life.
In vain did men well versed in the subject dwell
B 2
4
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
upon the proper office of education in drawing forth the
full capabilities of the human creature, rather than in
fitting him for some peculiar calling; the so-called
practical man wanted fruit in seed time, the necessities
of life gave plausibility to the outcry, and popular
clamour seemed to be fighting the battle of knowledge
against schools and universities. From the contempt
for principles, want of purpose and method in the
details naturally followed. With one set of persons
physical science was the great object, with another,
modern languages were all important; one class objected
to the study of mathematics, another thought the
classical languages useless; nor, in the absence of any
presiding idea, is it possible that this confusion should
cease. Dr. Donaldson justly remarks that 'the causes
of all the unprofitable discussions which have arisen
respecting the utility of particular branches of study
are to be sought in the vague and erroneous manner in
which we use the terms education, information, know-
ledge. We are in the habit of speaking of mere in-
formation as if it were exact knowledge, and we still
more frequently allow special or professional knowledge
to assume the honours which are due to general educa-
tion.' Further on he continues, 'We must distinguish
between education, properly so called, and professional
training. The former is designed for the cultivation
of the intellect and the development of the reasoning
faculties; the latter is intended to adapt a man for
some particular calling, which the laws of society and
the principle of the division of labour have assigned to
him as
an individual member of the body politic.
Now the training of the individual for this particular
purpose is not an education of man as such.
It
was for this reason that the clear-headed Greeks denied
:
PROFESSIONAL AND LIBERAL EDUCATION.
LO
5
the name of education (adela) to that which is
learned, not for its own sake, but for the sake of some
extrinsic gain, or for the sake of some work, and dis-
tinguished formally between those studies which they
called liberal or worthy of a free man, and those which
are merely mechanical or professional. In the same
way Cicero speaks of education properly so called, which
he names humanity (humanitas), because its object is to
give a full development to those reasoning faculties
which are the proper and distinctive attributes of man
as such. (See Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta, i. De Oratore,
i. 9.
Aul. Gellius, xiii. 16.) . . . . The test of a good
education is the degree of mental culture it imparts;
for education, so far as it is scientific, is the discipline
of the mind.'*
It is not that a formal preference has always been
given to the professional over the liberal education, but
the extreme anxiety for useful, in other words for
directly practical knowledge with reference to the mode
of life to which individuals were destined, sufficiently
indicates that the distinct object of the two educations.
have been confounded in the public mind. And it is
this error which has vitiated our views of popular
education, and of the education of women, and introduced
disorder into both. Fortunately, however, this very
confusion leads to the detection of the error, for by
showing us a false theory pushed to its consequences it
enables us to ascertain its weak points.
So long as the education of boys belonging to the
upper and middle classes of society was alone under con-
sideration, the mistaken method of viewing the subject
might easily pass unobserved by all who were not
* Dr. DONALDSON's New Cratylus. Introduction, p. 6. 2nd Edition.
6
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
accustomed to look somewhat deeply into these ques-
tions, and for this reason, that knowledge which was
erroneously made the test of their education was really
of great practical importance to them. Though we
ought to be content that the boy should know little if
he have acquired the power of learning much, yet the
learning sooner or later cannot be dispensed with. It
is required by the whole business of life, and we cannot
wonder, when so high a market value attaches to know-
ledge, that it should be forgotten that education has
other duties than to impart it. But when the subject
began to be considered with reference to a wider range
of persons, the omission became evident. When
women, for instance, began to seek education, and
when that of the people became a political necessity,
the question incessantly repeated was, 'What can be
the use of such or such knowledge to them? what will
they want with this or that for their domestic avoca-
tions, or their lives of constant labour ?' To this
question there was no answer, according to the ordi-
nary views, and consequently the limits of popular
education are yearly discussed, with every variety of
opinion concerning the immediate practical value of
what is taught, while women's education fluctuates
without any principle at all, according to the fashion of
the day.
The reason is evident. Knowledge has no practical
value, using those words in the sense commonly attached
to them, of money value, to women, or to men tied down
to manual labour. To the latter, indeed, it may afford
a hope of escaping from such labour to a higher sphere
of employment; but to women it holds out no worldly
inducement whatever. So long, therefore, as education
is tested by the amount of knowledge acquired at a
ONE GREAT PURPOSE OF EDUCATION.
7
certain age, and needed for certain immediate purposes,
female education may be tolerated as a harmless fashion,
but it has no real purpose or importance.
But if, when those great questions of school and
university teaching were first mooted, another method
had been followed; if, instead of asking simply, What
is taught how much knowledge does this system
impart? the question had been Why is it taught?—to
what does it fashion the young minds subjected to its
influence? the result would, I conceive, have been very
different. The old system might or might not have
been condemned; but assuredly some definite principles
would have been laid down for the new.
Now, the fundamental truth to start from appears to
me to be this—that education, apart from all secondary
objects (that is, all objects which have reference to
peculiar circumstances or positions), has one and the
same purpose for every human being; and this pur-
pose is the systematic and harmonious development
of his whole moral and intellectual nature. It follows
that the elementary principles must be the same for all.
The means necessarily vary according to circumstances,
position, and the spirit of the times. The exigencies
of life may force us to leave the work incomplete; but
the foundation must be the same, the aim alike in
every case.
The human creature, whether man or
woman, a peasant or a prince, is born with the germ
of certain faculties, capable in some degree of moral
feeling, of responsibility, of forethought, of reason, of
judgment, and it is the business of education to train
those faculties for use. We know no other way of
doing this than by exercising them in the guidance of
conduct and the acquisition of knowledge, thus facili-
tating their action by the power of habit.
It is a
8
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
wholly separate-I might almost say an irrelevant-
question, how far the knowledge acquired in the course
of educational study will be available hereafter. That
cui-bono cry, which an eminent man of the present
day has denounced as the bane of the philosopher who
seeks knowledge for its own sake, is the true touch-
stone by which we may discern whether the funda-
mental principles of education are understood or not.
It is, then, because those principles have been neglected
in the eagerness for profitable knowledge that we are
still halting between different systems of school and
university teaching; and that, neither for women nor
for the working-classes, is it possible to establish any
system at all. There is a strong feeling that the poor
ought to be educated, but why, and how far, remains
yet to be settled. If we argue upon grounds of mere
worldly utility, we never can get rid of petty squabbles
as to the amount of arithmetic, grammar, or history
which may or may not turn out to be profitable to
them; and it must ever remain an open question
whether industrial schools are not better than those of
a more intellectual character. But if we take our stand
upon the ground that the human being remains a
mutilated creature if the capacities of his mind are left
dormant, or if, when awakened by circumstances, he has
no command over them, then it becomes at once
apparent that every study which tends to exercise
those powers is useful in the highest sense of the word,
and that the only limitations to this mental discipline
and to the knowledge which it is good for all human
beings to acquire are those imposed by time and
means. The education of women has no firm standing
on any other grounds. Fashion and custom may make
certain acquirements desirable, but the necessity and
EVILS ARISING FROM FALSE VIEWS.
9
consequent duty of education lies in that broad prin-
ciple alone. The same of course holds good for men
of the higher classes also; but it is more easily lost
sight of, owing to the practical necessity in this case
of acquiring knowledge, so that the cui-bono cry gets
at least a plausible and intelligible answer.
Men having thus put out of sight what we may call
the true human purpose of education, two great evils
followed. First: The necessary connexion between
moral and intellectual cultivation has been forgotten, or
lost sight of, and the development therefore has been
one-sided. Secondly: The external, or money-value
of knowledge increasing day by day, its intrinsic worth
and beauty has been obscured, and thus the love of
truth has kept no pace with the progress of knowledge.
The systematic and harmonious development of the
moral and intellectual nature is, as I have stated above,
the business of education; but where this truth is un-
recognised, or forgotten, the want of a definite purpose.
entails want of system and harmony. Accordingly,
nothing is more remarkable than the absence of har-
mony or completeness in modern education. The
defect is conspicuous alike in that of both sexes, but
the mal-proportions differ, and indeed are generally re-
versed. Intellectual training, for instance, which is
acknowledged to be necessary for boys, engrosses the
larger share of attention in their education, while their
moral development is almost unheeded, left to the
reproof of chance' and the influence of circumstances.
On the other hand, with girls, intellectual cultivation
having no distinct purpose, is regulated by caprice
or the fashion of the day; but their moral training is
conscientiously cared for, and being often admirable in
intention, at least, it produces as much fruit as can be
10
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
expected when it is coupled with narrow views and un-
disciplined intellects. In both cases the defect is the
same-namely, ignorance or forgetfulness of the neces-
sary action and reaction upon each other of intellectual
and moral culture, producing an unnatural divorce
between the life of the intellect and the life of action
and feeling. The origin of the defect is also the same
in both cases. So long as it is supposed that we can,
with impunity, choose between our intellectual and
moral faculties, and neglect that form of culture which
seems least essential to our worldly position and objects,
education must remain a mere question of ambition, of
fashion, or of policy, into which principle cannot enter.
The course that has been pursued is perfectly con-
sistent with this view.
It is because the subject is less encumbered with
extraneous considerations when the working-classes are
in question, that it is useful to study it in that aspect.
We are forced there to go to the foundation of the
matter, or give it up altogether. Neither fashion nor
ambition comes in to obscure it, and it then becomes
apparent that every argument which is brought against
over-educating (as it is termed) the classes destined to
manual labour tells equally against giving knowledge
to women; the two things must be defended upon the
same principles, and it is from the tone of the defence
that we are made to perceive that the principles are
misapprehended. Examine any of the many debates
on national education, and what do we find? Long
discussions about the use boys or girls will be able to
make of this or that piece of knowledge; what they
will want with geography while working in a factory ;
how grammar will help them to plough or make shoes,
&c. Are not questions of the same kind raised with
MORAL CULTURE.
11
regard to giving women any knowledge beyond the
circle mere routine has sanctioned? The notion that
cultivated intelligence will affect character and the
general tone of mind, and therefore the capacity for
whatever task the future may bring, is equally left out
of sight in both cases.
Moral culture is indeed nominally acknowledged to
be necessary for all
1; but as it is at the same time
generally considered to be synonymous with religious
teaching, it is either neglected in school education as
belonging to the province of the religious teacher of
each sect, or else the religious teaching, in which it is
supposed to be included, is made the ground-work of
the whole system: in either case it is separated from
intellectual discipline. The effect of this mode of
viewing morals and religion has been to diminish their
influence on the minds of men who are engrossed with
practical interests; the effect on women, as on the
working-classes, has been to lessen the value for mental
culture, to make it appear at least a thing apart from
all the real duties of the spiritual being. And thus,
in proportion as moral education was considered alone.
important, it lost vigour and consistency.
In early childhood, moral training is almost en-
tirely a matter of feeling and association. It depends
on the home influences, whatever they may be, and is
therefore the conscious or unconscious work of the
parents, and especially of the mother, long before one
word of precept or of dogma can be understood. Later,
when it becomes also a matter for the understanding, it
depends much upon the degree of cultivation which
that understanding has received. The same dogmas
and the same precepts are taught to all; their reception
and the fruit they will bear must vary in each indi-
12
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
vidual according to his power of understanding them,
of seeing their full scope, of scanning their remote
bearings, and of applying their general principles to the
particular circumstances of his own case.
The mere
desire to do right, to live morally and religiously,
though it may acquit the individual conscience, will
not supply the place of sound judgment in discerning
real good from specious evil, of foresight, or of reflec-
tion, on which depends our power of learning wisdom
from experience. Whoever studies the life of the labour-
ing classes, can hardly fail to acknowledge that their
sufferings and their vices are in a very great measure
owing to their ignorance and want of forethought.
Here, then, we see the necessity of mental discipline,
which opens up the resources of knowledge, and gives
to the mind the habit of looking to something beyond
the necessities of the present hour.
+
And whoever will in like manner examine the lives
of women, will see that most of their faults and their
follies, and much of the suffering they endure, as well
as of the evils that result to society, spring from the
same source—namely, from the ignorance which leaves
them a prey to frivolity or ennui, to the mental feeble-
ness which prevents their appreciating their position,
with its duties, advantages, and difficulties, and which
exposes them to become the victims of enthusiasts,
quacks, or hypocrites, under various garbs. The
remedy is the same in both cases-knowledge and
mental discipline, which will give new vigour to the
moral nature.
The moral cultivation of women is due almost
exclusively to religious feeling; philosophically they
are in general as indifferent to moral as to metaphysical
speculation. If the Scriptures were really studied,
INSUFFICIENCY OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. 13
a far wider system might be gathered from their
teaching. Worldly knowledge and the saddest worldly
wisdom have been recorded in many of its pages;
while the expansive nature of the spiritual principles
of the New Testament is one of the characteristic
points which most peculiarly marks its superiority over
all other religious systems. But these things are not
discerned by those who are guided by feeling only, nor
by those whose impious diffidence,' as Bacon calls it,
makes them think they do honour to the Scriptures by
refusing the aid of other knowledge to interpret them.
To the majority of minds the morals of religion are
essentially narrow, seldom rising from individual to
social considerations, or they are confined at best within
a circle which is far from commensurate with the many
duties and multiplied relations of life. The utmost
individual purity and uprightness, aided by the truest
religious feeling, will not save us from doing mischief
amid the complicated conditions of our social existence,
from exercising a wrong influence, or failing to exercise
a right one, unless the mind, purified by religion, has
been strengthened by the exercise of thought and
judgment, and has acquired by patient labour and
study the means of judging rightly. This fact would
seem too obvious to need discussing, if the division
still maintained in education between moral and
religious training on the one hand, and intellectual
exercise on the other, did not prove that the former is
still expected to be a sufficient preparation for life, for
all who do not require to use their intellect for some
direct purpose of worldly advancement. It will be
admitted that truly excellent persons are ill-judging
and narrow-minded, and therefore liable to do all the
mischief to society that follows from ignorance and
14
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
prejudice; but it is not yet generally acknowledged
that the only remedy is the early discipline of the
intellect the early formation of those habits of mind
by which we become accustomed to compare, to reason,
to judge, to act upon system. This discipline can in
ordinary life be carried on only by means of carefully-
directed studies. The actual subject studied may have
little or no bearing on the actual life of the individual;
but the mental toil is strengthening the mind for
whatever it may find hereafter to do. It is breaking
in the faculties to habits which are essential to all
future operations, whether practical or intellectual.*
Had this connexion between moral and intellectual
culture been generally remembered they would have
stood or fallen together. But when moral training is
regarded as synonymous with religion, and religion with
theology, all that mental discipline which would have
braced the moral system, which would have given
breadth and clearness of views and strength of convic-
tion, is left out. Whenever such discipline shall be
generally held to be necessary in this respect, when it
shall be clearly and generally perceived that judgment,
prudence, and systematic action, the things we value
most in daily life, result from it; and when higher
views of morals and religion shall have proved that it
is a duty as well as a privilege to every creature born to
the inheritance of immortality to cultivate all the
powers God has given, and to cherish the love of truth
* Tout est lié dans les dispositions morales et dans les habitudes de
l'homme. Un travail qui met de l'ordre dans les idées prépare à l'ordre
dans la conduite. L'exercice de l'attention la fortifie et par elle le juge-
ment et la mémoire, les deux facultés les plus essentielles dans les affaires
de la vie.-Bibliothèque Universelle. Quoted by Mrs. Marcet, in Con-
versations on Political Economy, p. 147. 7th Edition.
LOW VIEW OF KNOWLEDGE.
15
in every form; whenever these things shall be ac-
knowledged, then, and not till then, there will be an
end of all disputes, and confusions, and difficulties which
still encumber the education of all who do not need to
use their intelligence for some end of profit or of ambi-
tion. Differences of opinion will always remain about
the means and the details, but concerning the general
method and purpose of the whole there will be none.
Circumstances will confine the education of the majority
within very narrow limits, but contentions about an
arbitrary limit in any case will be set at rest for ever.
The second evil which I mentioned as resulting from
the misconception of the true purpose of education, was
that the money value of knowledge had usurped the
first place, and put out of sight its true worth and
claims to be sought and loved for its own sake.
Female education affords a lamentable illustration of
this fact. Women have no worldly use for knowledge;
accordingly it has been thought superfluous to give
them any. The prejudice that made it seem unfemi-
nine has passed away in great measure; but that we
owe the change to fashion more than to principle may
be seen by the course pursued in education. Even
now, if women really loving knowledge are led to seek
it in any unusual channels, they have often more
difficulty in giving a plausible aspect to their conduct
than had they been led away by the most frivolous
folly. I think it must be acknowledged, for instance,
that a woman would find it harder to explain her
motives, and to procure a patient hearing for them, if
she wished to spend fifty pounds in making a geological
tour, than if she proposed to throw away twice or three
times that sum in attending a series of fêtes at Paris or
Vienna.
16
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
In justification of women, however, we must be al-
lowed to remark, that the low appreciation of the value of
knowledge is by no means a mere female error. It does
not originate with women; they have only acted upon
the principle which they have seen governing the world.
Men who are not forced to acquire knowledge too
generally spend their leisure quite as frivolously, and
far more blameably, than women. The follies of the
latter are on a small scale, and treated with a laugh as
they deserve; but the follies of the former are on a
magnificent scale, and we do not venture to laugh at
what breaks down the fortunes of families and interrupts
the business of nations. Women are without any ex-
ternal motive to intellectual exertion, but no man is
without the stimulus of honourable ambition, if he is
capable of feeling it. Those who throw away their
lives in sporting, in yachting, or in any other form of
idle pleasure, do it in contempt of advantages which
rarely, or never, are placed within the reach of women.
They have had the same education which has ripened
the finest intellects in the country, and they cherish
ignorance; they have a noble sphere of action, whether
for private or public usefulness, and they prefer to
grovel in idleness; no conventional barriers restrain
their pursuit of knowledge; libraries, public institutions,
the society of the learned, the whole range of the world,
is open to them, and they prefer a kennel, or a race-
course, or haunts more ignoble still, where they may
parade their degradation in every capital throughout
Europe.
There is great unfairness in comparing the use
women make of their time and faculties with that of
the great working body of men.
Their circumstances
are too different to allow of any parallel. Women can
REAL LOVERS OF TRUTH.
17
fairly be compared in these respects to men of leisure
only; and many as are the bright exceptions among
them to the miserable folly alluded to above, and great
as the service is which such men have done to their
country and to mankind by noble labour in many fields,
it is but just to remember how many motives appeal to
them which do not exist for women. Though exempt
from necessary toil, some find pleasure in an active
career; some love its mere importance; others value
the power; some covet mere distinction; some few
behold Fame's starry crown,' and though it shines.
over their grave alone, they are content to strive for it,
if while they perish they leave the mark of their
genius upon their generation. And so, spurred on by
motives great and small, men strive, and labour, and
hope. But not so with us. Our striving must be in
silent obscurity; our labour compensated by no public
triumph; our hope rest on no worldly reward. We
may watch with interest and sympathy the career of
active and ambitious men, but those whom we must
strive to imitate are the loftier spirits who have toiled
for Truth alone; who, when they have given forth the
fruit of their labour to benefit their fellow-creatures,
have forgotten the glory in the earnestness of their pur-
suit-men who have felt that in the discovery of truth
was an intensity of enjoyment beyond any reward their
labour could bring. These are the masters and teachers
whose example may be of use to woman in her humble
sphere, excluded as she is by the conditions of her lot
from the paths they disdain to follow, teaching her,
like them, to rise above the views that make those
paths most alluring to the vulgar herd.
Indifference to knowledge, except as a marketable
commodity, naturally makes leisure appear synonymous
C
18.
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
with idleness. The absence of a compulsory task to
perform makes it appear that there is nothing to do.
From this confusion, so indicative of a low state of
public feeling on the subject, springs an overweening
value for professional occupations, not only with those
who look to the profit alone, but with those who justly
look upon the existence of a large idle class as a pest
to society.
The work of the world must be done, the vast and
complicated machinery we call society must be kept in
action, and we do right to honour those who toil use-
fully and uprightly at this task, and still more those
who bring high purpose and keen intellect to the
labour. The error begins when we honour this toil
above that of the studious searcher after knowledge;
when we think that the career to which a man is
bound by hopes of gain or ambition ranks higher than
that of him who is content to 'scorn delights and live
laborious days' without any other hope than that of
getting some nearer glimpse of truth, to whom the
world's noisy interests are as nothing, because he is
dwelling in the contemplation of Eternal order and
beauty. When I say the course of such a man is
looked down upon with contemptuous or quiet pity,
while that of the other is applauded and envied, we
only give a melancholy proof of how far the worship
of Mammon has dimmed our spiritual perceptions, how
the cravings of the body have silenced the ‘still small
voice' that speaks from God's wide creation to His
noblest work-the soul of man; how utterly the music
of the spheres is lost to us amidst the noisy babblings
of the market-place.
What are the motives that lead men into profes-
sions? In general the necessity of working for a sub-
MEN DRIVEN INTO PROFESSIONS.
19
sistence, or at best the desire of increasing a small
independent income. Some professions lead to dis-
tinction in public life, and these are sought with less
regard to money; there is also a strange feeling that a
man 'has nothing to do' unless he is professionally
employed, and thus men who might live independently
go to increase the throng and competition in every path
of public life, merely because they dare not trust them-
selves with the disposal of their own time; while others
are made to feel that unless landed property gives
them a distinct and recognised occupation, or at any
rate an acknowledged exemption from any other, society
will look down upon them as useless drones if they are
content with following their own pursuits, and spreading
the influence of refined habits and tastes, and the tone
of a cultivated mind through a private circle. The same
views make parents prefer tying down the heir to their
wealth to any professional drudgery sooner than expose
him to the perils of leisure, unless political life opens a
wider field to his ambition. I do not wish to under-
value this system; it works in many respects most
beneficially for society, and when we compare England
with other countries where men do not go into any
professions but the military, unless driven by abso-
lute poverty, we may well rejoice that such a custom
should prevail among us, at least till a different tone of
education has taught men that life is not a holiday
though it be not spent at school. But while we reco-
gnise the uses of the system, let us not praise it for more
than it is worth; jails are necessary to the welfare of
society, but let us not wreath the treadmill with laurels,
nor forget that the noblest minds are those which need
no outward restraint, no spur to exertion, no golden chain
to bind them to a course of social duty and usefulness..
C 2
20
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
It is a sad thing to reflect how many men fit for
better things are driven by real necessity into profes-
sions, and instead of taking rank among the enlight-
eners of mankind, 'fall into that gulf in which many of
the world's greatest geniuses lie buried-professional
eminence.'* But sadder still is it to see that those to
whom all the noble unremunerated labour of the world
ought to fall can find nothing to do to save them from
mischief but to compete with others for rewards of
which they should be independent.
(
It is the remark of a man actively engaged himself
in professional labour, that the happiest men in ex-
istence, sua si bona norint, are persons engaged in
literature or science as an employment.'† 'The active
operations of the intellect do not,' says the same
writer,' depend for success, or gratification upon success,
in the pursuit of their object; their labours are their
reward.' And the most privileged of men are those
who have leisure for such happiness and faculty to feel
it. Inevitable as all the toil of the world undoubtedly
is, how can it fail to strike every reflecting mind that
the labour is for the means of living only. We must
have food, and shelter, and clothing, and live as others.
our equals live; and we must be protected from the
vicious and saved from the folly of the ignorant; and
as the task becomes harder and harder in the fierce
competition of increasing numbers, intellect must com-
bine means hitherto unthought of, extort from Nature
her hidden secrets, and bend the elements themselves to
aid the industry of man. But still the greatest part of
*BURTON: Life of Hume, vol. i.
p.
28.
+ Elements of the Pathology of the Human Mind. By Dr. THOMAS
MAYO, p. 42.
THOUGHT AND AFFECTION ARE LIFE. 21
this vast and magnificent labour is to satisfy the wants.
of our bodily life only; it is the preparation of the
means of living as much as the Indian hunter's toil
when he has brought down his game, and lighted the
fire under his forest-hut. And when does the real life
begin? To each one of us real life is in those hours,
be they few or many, when we are free to give ourselves.
up to the enjoyment of our affections, or when we
commune with God and are still,' reading his laws
impressed on the universe, and on our own spiritual
being; when, though we may not shuffle off this
mortal coil,' we lay aside for a time its poor wants and
cares, its passions and desires, and have leisure to feel
the craving after truth, the perception of the beautiful,
the love of the purely good and great, which give our
souls an earnest of immortality.
C
It is true that He who gave us these glorious aspi-
rations gave also the bodily wants and delights, and
appointed the necessity of labour as the school without
which few would train their nobler powers; but all
that looks to earthly life is stamped as perishable.
'Passing away' is the one unvarying character in a
world of change; while, on the contrary, those higher
aspirations are changeless and undying, never satiated,
growing by the contemplations they feed on, they point
to a life beyond, with a conviction to many minds
above the force of proof.
Thought and affection: these are life. The more
we have leisure and power to cherish them, the more
during our span of years we may be said really to live,
instead of lingering among the preparation for life.
How, then, can we venture to think lightly of the
leisure which is not tied down to a money-seeking
labour-leisure to live? Some professions call forth a
22
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
great deal of thought and speculation, or force a con-
siderable amount of knowledge, valuable in itself, and
in the pursuit of which the highest faculties are ex-
ercised. In proportion as it is so, professional labour
approaches to the dignity of independent philosophic
pursuits; for there is nothing in receiving payment for
toil which can lessen the worth of the latter; the sordid
view is that which considers its worth stamped by the
payment. If we own how few are worthy of leisure,
then we value the forced occupations on the right
grounds—namely, as saving men, in one sense, from
themselves-in rescuing ordinary minds from the many
chances of deterioration that would attend their being
left to self-regulation. All men are not fit to be 'a
law unto themselves;' and so with pursuits—all men
are not capable of loving knowledge for its own sake,
and of making continual exertion without the hope of
some positive and tangible reward. And it is well for
society that such differences should exist; the only im-
portant point in considering them is to assign to them
their proper rank.
In education, especially, any mistake on this point
introduces great confusion, and from such confusion we
have hitherto suffered. For if professional pursuits are
in themselves intrinsically the most valuable, according
to the rewards they lead to, then professional education
is the most important part of the training of the man;
and those are right who reject the ancient notion of a
liberal education which aimed at putting the man in
possession of his faculties, trained for any purpose to
which he might choose to apply them, in favour of the
education which teaches certain branches of learning,
with a view to their practical use in the calling to
which he intends to devote himself. According to this
NECESSITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION.
23
view, the lower classes require none but the slightest
tincture of education, for even reading and writing often
rise beyond their wants; men of property require
little education, unless they are ambitious of distinction
in public life; and women need as little, or even less,
for the care of children, their one positive occupation,
besides household matters, requires little knowledge.
But when we take the opposite view, and look rather
at the human creature than at his actual business in
the world; when we see that the great value of pro-
fessional occupation to the majority of minds is to save
them from the responsibility of that leisure they are
not fit to make a worthy use of, then education appears
in a new light; then we value most that which fits the
man to regulate his own life; we look to the human
being with all his rich endowments, and that gift of
time to dispose of, rather than to society's workman
ever toiling at a task, and not knowing what to do with
his own life when compulsion ceases. A necessary in-
ference from this view also is, that those who inevitably
possess leisure require, not less, but more education,
and of a higher and more severe cast than those who
will be kept at school, in some measure, all their lives.
by the enforced labour of a profession.
Now those to whom this precious but perilous posses-
sion inevitably falls are the comparatively small number
of men of fortune, and the whole mass of women of the
upper and middle classes; for even in the latter, unless
where the cares of a large family engross every hour,
there is a fearful amount of leisure which too often
leaves their uncultivated minds a prey to ennui, or to
gossip and folly. If education do not infuse into per-
sons so situated, whatever their means or position, that
high tone of thought and those mental habits which
24
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
lead to worthy pursuits without the spur of necessity,
it is evident that they must sink far below the average
of those who are forced to toil for a distinct purpose.
And not only will this individual deterioration be the
result of misused leisure, but their collective social in-
fluence will be bad instead of good. It will go to
increase frivolity and to strengthen false views both of
life and of the value of knowledge.
In this country, where the struggle for existence is
so fierce, where every weapon of successful competition
is so valuable, men need perpetually to be reminded
that the human intellect, and the knowledge it is able
to aspire to and to grasp, are of more worth in them-
selves than all the worldly purposes for which they are
put to daily vulgar use. And how shall they be
reminded of this except by the example of those who,
owing to gifts of fortune or natural condition, are able
to stand aloof from the contest.
6
Dr. Mayo, after the passage before quoted on the
happiness that may be found in intellectual exertion,
laments that this source of happiness should be so
rarely appreciated. The reason of this,' he says, 'is
probably to be found in the extensive tendency of those
who conduct the education of our youth to encourage
ambition as the principal motive for those exertions.
How can that boy learn to value the luxuries of science
or literature who is only taught to appreciate them as
a means of gaining applause ?'*
Thus Dr. Whewell also, in his remarks on university
education, laments the absence of any right spirit on
these points. It might appear,' he says, 'as if our
countrymen were too practical to love knowledge and
*Elements of the Pathology of the Human. Mind, p. 42.
LOW TONE OF FEELING.
25
speculation for its own sake, and to bestow time and
systematic thought upon it, except it lead to something
of profit or distinction.' Further on he says,-' It is
certain that the great body of young Englishmen, during
their residence at the universities, will never, till their
characters and dispositions have undergone a material
change, derive any great portion of their education from
their voluntary attendance on the public lectures of the
university. They bring to the university no tastes, no
ambition, no preparation which lead them to follow the
speculations thus placed before them.'* And who must
we blame for this sluggishness of intellect that ever
needs a spur or a bribe to make it reach forth its
strength? Who but those who in favoured positions
have by their low example strengthened the belief that
the practical, the so-called useful in the materialistic
sense of that much abused word, was the highest thing
man should aim at? If youths come to college so desti-
tute of high aspirations and generous ambition, who are
we to accuse? In general, the whole tone of society;
and in each individual case, the parents. The father,
too much immersed in business to have leisure for
thought, or too much engrossed with pleasure or given
up to mere indolence to be capable of thought; and
the mother, with whom, whatever the father's position,
rests the spiritual training of her child, that is, all of
education which belongs to sentiment and motive, and
must be inspired not taught.
But how should mothers inspire their sons with
earnest love of knowledge-in other words, with the
aspiration towards all that is true and beautiful—if they
have never felt what they are called upon to impart?
* WHEWELL on University Education, pp. 67 and 69.
26
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
if they have never been roused from the torpor of a
vacant unthinking existence to feel the grandeur and
the worth of those pursuits which awaken the sense of
the Godlike in man's intellect, so magnificent in its
reach, so glorious in its triumphs? It is not great know-
ledge nor extensive powers that are required to be able
to feel this. It is sufficient to be free from littleness-
to have that nice sense of the proportions and due
relations of things which belong to a well balanced.
mind-which enables it to feel the grandeur and beauty
of what its understanding cannot fathom, and saves it
from that common error of little minds, mistaking their
own garden for the universe.
In a former work* I have taken my part in striving
to enforce these views upon women, and to point out
how, in this as in many other instances, they are the
natural guardians of man's highest interests. Every
tender thought, every lofty emotion, every generous
sentiment that men may be in danger of forgetting in
the clash and tumult of the world should be shrined in
the hearts of women, and thence go forth to purify and
sustain and resist the lowering tendencies of active life.
And against none is this aid more required than
against the perversion of knowledge to be the mere
servant of Mammon. Men will always love and value
it sufficiently under that aspect; that which adds
daily to our comforts and profits and pleasure will not
fail to be honoured, but we may hope to see it
reverenced in a higher spirit when that reverence
shall become part of the home-creed of childhood-
part of that spiritual nurture which the child receives
Thoughts on Self-Culture, chap. xii. Second edition.
Second edition. London:
J. Petheram, 94, High Holborn.
KNOWLEDGE A FASHION.
27
from her who moulds his feelings and associations by
the influence of hourly example and boundless love.
While men take the mere ambitious view of educa-
tion, and women value certain acquirements for the
sake of fashion only, a fearful amount of frivolity may
co-exist with a great deal of information and intelli-
gence; but this will hardly be the case when women
shall be so educated as to feel the true worth of
knowledge, the true value of a serene region of earnest
interest and delight in the midst of all the misleading
and lowering influences of the world, and to uphold
this feeling in society. Compared with two genera-
tions ago, there is in the present day an immense
increase of information, and therefore, perhaps, a
generally quicker intelligence and power of appre-
hension. Minds accustomed to know even the roughest
outline of a variety of subjects, and to understand a
great variety of terms, will more readily seize new
knowledge when presented to them than minds more
limited in their experience. But is there, with this in-
creased information, any corresponding decrease of
frivolity among us? I fear not. The greater rauge
of amusements, and the easier rate at which they
may be enjoyed, rather tend perhaps to foster a frivolous
tone; or, at least, that love of pleasure and distaste for
quiet home-enjoyment which belong to the frivolous.
People may follow the crowd to a lecture-room as to
an assembly, and may know and use correctly many
scientific terms where formerly they would never have
attended to such subjects at all. But if they have
only followed the crowd, and such is the case too
often, there is no reason to expect that they should
be less frivolous than before. It is not the occupa-
tion of an hour, but the intention of the mind that
28.
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
influences character; and, till we read or attend
lectures-not for fashion's sake, nor for talk, nor to
appear instructed, nor to get rid of time, but with a
simple and earnest desire to know-not till then will
the practice affect the tone of thought or daily habits.
We may safely assert, that if real value for mental
pursuits were at all proportionate to the spread of mere
information, the life now led by a large proportion of
the wealthy classes of society would become an im-
possibility. There would be no occasion to denounce
or laugh at it; the system itself must fall before the
wide and earnest views of life which would then govern
the majority of educated minds. To those who, either
removed themselves from that life of pleasure-seeking
and frivolous excitement, or, pausing now and then as
its course slackens or the heart wearies with its empti-
ness, have leisure to contemplate its social and domestic
effects, it needs no argument to prove how great would
be the benefit of such a change. Equal benefit would
result to the listless lives of women who cannot afford,
or by position or habits do not incline to join, the
race of amusement; since the earnest pursuit which
would sober the pleasure-seekers would become a
fresh source of vitality to those who have neither
pleasure nor business to rouse them.
I shall have occasion later to enter more fully into
this part of the subject, for the suffering of women
from the want of animating pursuit is of too serious
importance not to be carefully considered in their
education; here I have only touched upon it as one
of the many reasons which make it needful that in
educating girls we should aim not at this or that form
of acquirement, but at making love of knowledge for its
own sake the very spring of their intellectual life, and
MOTIVE FOR BETTER EDUCATION.
29
giving habits of mental exertion which shall help to
counteract the many dangers of leisure and the
narrowing tendencies of small cares and occupations
amidst which women must unavoidably live.
The very fact that women have no professions to
exercise their abilities, or make them feel the need of
knowledge, which has been the plea for giving them
little or no solid mental cultivation, is then in truth, as I
said above, the reason why they need a higher and more
severe tone of education; since, unless we would allow
their faculties to be wasted both to themselves and
society, they must be educated to feel from within what
comes to the more active portion of mankind from
without. They must be educated to feel the constant
necessity of self-improvement and their responsibility
as members of society, although not sharing in its
active labours. It is not indeed difficult to show how
many of woman's home duties, both as wife and mother,
would be far better discharged by more cultivated
minds, and how far her sphere of enjoyment and in-
fluence is increased by extending to man's intellectual
life the power of sympathy she exercises so strongly
within the range of feelings and affections; but it is not
sufficient to rest the plea for female education even on
such grounds as these. In educating a young girl we
must feel that her future is too uncertain, too much
beyond her own control, to venture to train her alto-
gether for a position that may never be hers. The only
safe course is to hold up individual perfectness, as far
as such a term may be used, as the aim of education ;
in other words, the harmonious development of all her
powers as her own individual right and duty; to train
her, in short, as God's creature, not as man's subor-
dinate. The subordination itself, so far as it is God's
30
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
laws, will be all the more clearly perceived and under-
stood the more the mind is rendered capable of studying
and comprehending other general laws of nature; for
it were truly a dangerous satire upon man's supremacy
to allow that it expects to be acknowledged only so long
as women are feeble-minded and ignorant.
31
CHAPTER II.
APPLICATION OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES TO
FEMALE EDUCATION.
SECTION 1.-In the last chapter I have attempted
to examine some of the causes which have led
to mistaken views of education generally; to errors
which have assumed different forms as exhibited in the
education of men and women of the upper and lower
classes of society, but which, springing from the same
origin, can be corrected only by the same return to
fundamental principles.
Two errors appeared to lay at the root of the many
mistakes and confusions into which the world has
fallen upon this subject. First: the severance of intel-
lectual from moral and religious culture, not perceiving
the necessary bearing of the former on the latter, from
which error sprang the neglect of mental cultivation by
those who did not need it for some worldly purpose, and
the too frequent neglect of moral discipline by the intel-
lectually active. Secondly that mental cultivation
and the pursuit of knowledge being thus considered as
mere instruments of worldly advancement, their real
value has been slighted; they have been taken up for
fashion's sake, or as a means of getting rid of time;
practical and professional pursuits have risen to undue
estimation, while those who had it most in their power
to set a high example and to influence society, have
32
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
favoured frivolity by misusing leisure. Thus, while the
feeling that compulsory money-getting operations are
the only real business of life is encouraged, it follows
that those who are exempt from such compulsions may
be idle and uninstructed if they please.
As we examined the subject more closely it became
evident that women are the principal sufferers from this
grievous misapprehension of the real worth and use of
the human intellect; since, if consistently acted upon,
it would confine them entirely to the sphere of house-
hold occupations, which, in the majority of cases among
the classes exempt from manual labour, would not be
sufficient to fill up their time or save them from the
familiar demon of the idle-ennui. We must now
consider more fully how these views bear on female
education, and what, according to sounder principles,
ought to be the course of the latter.
One mischievous result of the neglect of mental
discipline, when not required for worldly ends, is that
female education, which, as a general rule, can have no
such ends in view, has been regarded as a comparatively
light and easy matter. Men of intellect and high
worth have been placed at the head of public schools
and colleges. The subject of education and of tuition
itself with reference to boys has always been considered.
worthy to occupy the best minds; but female education
has been almost universally abandoned to any who join
sufficient boldness to their ignorance to undertake a
task on which they have never perhaps spent one
month of serious study. The half-educated mother,
more engrossed, probably, with the nursery than the
school-room-the ill-educated governess, whose instruc-
tion in essential things seldom, perhaps, equals that
which a well-ordered national school now professes to
DIFFICULTIES OF FEMALE EDUCATION. 33
give such have been the teachers and directors of
this so-called education. We cannot wonder that want
of system in the whole has been no less conspicuous
than futility in the details.
It is not easy to educate boys, yet it is a less
arduous task than educating girls, for it is less encum-
bered with social difficulties, with inconsistencies, and
contradictions. Parents may say to their sons, 'Seek
truth and maintain it; know evil and shun it; be con-
scious of rectitude, and brave the world's dread laugh;
feel your own strength, struggle, aspire, and dare the
battle with difficulties and dangers and temptations.'
And if a high and generous spirit has been fostered in
the young mind, it will rise the higher the more
fiercely the contest presents itself. But no such simple
course is open to parents with their daughters. They
may form a resolute character, but they must enforce
diffidence in conduct and opinion; they may inspire
generous and lofty aims, but they must beware of
kindling ambition; they may train the energy that
overcomes difficulties, but they must teach the bold
spirit and strong will that generally accompany energy
to be content with submission. They may teach love
of truth and scorn of the world's baseness and folly, but
they must inculcate deference to the world's opinion;
they may earnestly strive to train the spiritual nature
to that full development of all its powers which is its
indefeasible right, but they must fit the woman for a
career of dependence, of narrow aims and repressed action.
When such a task is pronounced easy, we are justified
in believing that those who so call it, or act as if it were
so, are simply incapable of appreciating its difficulties.
Unfortunately, however, incompetent as mothers
may be to conquer, or even to feel, such difficulties,
D
34
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the task cannot be taken out of their hands.
So long
as girls are brought up at home (and the reasons
are manifold against any other system), the mother
may delegate to another the labour of giving lessons,
but hers must be the presiding spirit of an educa-
tion carried on under her own eyes and subject to her
constant interference. Should any mother answer to
this, that she makes it a point of not interfering with
the governess, I can only say that, in my opinion, she
labours under a delusion. She may not intentionally
interfere, she may be utterly ignorant of what passes in
the school-room, but how can she prevent that indolent
quiescence itself from interfering to influence her child's
moral perceptions and views of duty, her associations of
affection, and reverence, and gratitude? How can
anything that the mother does, or leaves undone, be
without its influence on the young creature who began
conscious moral existence by worshipping her as the
living image of goodness and wisdom, and is gradually
learning to judge her as she begins to look round, to
observe, and to reflect? Many an error would be avoided
by both parents if they would bear in mind that every
part of their conduct which comes within their child's
observation is part of that child's education. They create
the moral atmosphere in which their children live; how
vain, then, must it be to suppose that seclusion for a
certain number of hours in a school-room can withdraw
them from that all-pervading influence. Hardly do years.
mostly spent at school and college counteract home asso-
ciations, for it is very common to find that the man in
his public or professional capacity is what his public edu-
cation has made him, while in his private and home life,
in all that touches the inner springs of character and
feeling, he is governed by the influence of his early home.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE.
35
These facts, which place the responsibilities of mothers
in such a strong light, are perhaps alarming to some
minds. They may feel their own ignorance, and shrink
from the vast labour that is expected of them. Yet, if
mothers reflect enough upon the subject to feel this
diffidence while their children are still young, let them
not despair; the feeling, if earnest, will lead to improve-
ment, and they have yet time enough before the duties
of education become either arduous or complicated.
From the manner in which all the burdens that chil-
dren entail-expense, education, &c.-are sometimes.
spoken of, one might be tempted to imagine that the
young creatures sprang up like mushrooms under the
parental roof, and that their claims came as a sudden
unlooked-for demand upon their parents' purse and
energies. But when we consider the true state of the
case, we find that time is not wanting to prepare for
claims which are years in assuming any formidable
shape. It is true that, to some people, every demand
is sudden. There is in their minds no capacity for
preparation. They must know, for instance, that every
year expenses for their children increase, and will in-
crease in yet greater proportion as they grow older;
still they continue to live every year up to their
incomes, and are overwhelmed at last by claims which
they should have been preparing during ten years to
meet. So with the difficulties of education; a young
mother feels herself unfit to cope with them; she
acknowledges her deficiency, yet, during the eight or
ten years which elapse before the serious business of
teaching need begin, she continues the same course of
trivial occupation which must inevitably and most
effectually increase her unfitness.
But if, during all those years, she had given three,
D 2
36
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
or even two, hours every day to the earnest study of
those subjects which would best discipline and fit her
own mind to educate her children, or to superintend
their education, can we doubt that, with moderate
average abilities, she would have made herself more fit
for the office than are ninety-nine out of every hundred
of the teachers who undertake it at present? It is
true that the moral training of children allows of no
such delay; but although she may make mistakes in
that, she may be sure that the earnestness of her own
pursuits, the more intelligent observation which she
would direct to indications of character, and the daily
enlargement of her own mind, would all tell most bene-
ficially upon her management of young children.
The excuse of want of time for study is one which
any observer of the ordinary routine of feminine occupa-
tions must be reluctant to admit.
Doubtless nursery-
cares, illness, drudgery of various kinds, which small
means may render necessary, act as serious interrup-
tions. In most cases, however, the hindrance is much
greater that it need be, owing to want of method,
and of a due appreciation of the relative value of dif-
ferent claims, so that fifty trivial matters are allowed to
assume the rank of necessaries which a more systematic
view of duty would at once set aside. Allowing, then,
for all that is really essential, few, I repeat, are those
in the class of gentlewomen who might not devote two
hours in the day to the labour of preparing for the
most important duty of a woman's life. Even when
mothers are wishing to do their best by teaching their
children, how many an hour passed in giving lessons of
music, or history, or grammar, to little creatures under
ten years old, might be more profitably spent in play by
the child and in serious study by the mother! What
:
A MOTHER'S STUDIES.
37
comparison can there be between such lessons and the
labour which is to fit the mother for undertaking the
duties of education later, to enable her to form character,
and habits, and opinions, which will influence her chil-
dren, perhaps, for life? Truly, while the anxious mother
is educating herself, she may afford to be indifferent to
those who will scoff because, in the meantime, her babies
know less than other babies next door.
Earnest reading and study for this purpose should
be considered in the same light as a professional occu-
pation. Unfortunately, from never having known the
rigidity of compulsory work, women have seldom the
habit of methodical perseverance in pursuit ; they have,
besides, to contend with one real difficulty-i.e., being
subject to interruptions from others which may often
make it impossible to set apart an allotted time for
their own occupations. But though they cannot com-
mand regularity of hours, they may gather up, if I
may so express it, the same amount of time in frag-
ments amid the other avocations of the day, and thus
insure regularity of occupation. It is, doubtless, better
to have two hours continuously for reading, but an
hour twice a-day will do nearly as well; and four half-
hours, even, will accomplish a great deal, while the
determination which keeps working through difficulties,
adhering to the spirit of method where the outward
form is impossible, is itself excellent discipline to the
mind. On the other hand, as I said before, many
things must be set resolutely aside. No interruptions
must be allowed that do not come in the name of a
higher duty; no hindrances permitted, therefore, from
visiting, or letter-writing; nor from the children them-
selves bringing their noisy play to tempt the busy from
their labour; nor even from the claims of the poor, to
38
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
which some women devote more time than they really
ought to spare from their families; nor from the appa-
rent necessity of needlework, from which much that is
ornamental might generally be retrenched. Even when
of the most essential kind, it might, in most cases, be
more cheaply paid for in money than by the total sacri-
fice of the time and faculties the mother owes to her
children's higher interests. I know there are cases
where the pressure of poverty and a large family
force a woman to lead a life of continual drudgery;
but there are few, very few, in which time is not given
to some occupation which can make no claim equal to
that which I am urging. And it must be remembered
that those are the very cases in which a mother will be
obliged to teach as well as to educate her daughters,
so that, as a mere question of economy, it is better for
her to pay a sempstress now, in order that she may be
fit to undertake the far more expensive office of gover-
ness a few years later. But, in truth, it is not a ques-
tion of choice or inclination; as well might a man,
having once (by marrying) undertaken the charge of a
family, consult his taste as to whether or not he can
go through the labour of supporting them. A woman,
in marrying, willingly incurs the duties and respon-
sibilities of the mother's office, and she cannot choose
which part of them she will attend to, and which
neglect under the plea of unfitness. So long as she is
unfit, her duty is clear-i.e., to remedy the deficiency
by every means in her power.
These remarks may perhaps seem to wander from my
subject; but since, at every step, in considering female
education I must assume that the mother is the teacher,
or at any rate the directress of the whole, it appeared
necessary to meet that plea of unfitness which is so fre-
1
NECESSITY OF A DEFINITE PURPOSE.
39
quently brought forward without any apparent con-
sciousness that blame attaches to such unfitness, or that
exertion would remove it.
We have seen that forgetfulness of the true human
purpose of education, in over anxiety about practical
worldly ends, leaves female education without any
definite aim at all. Yet without a distinct purpose, and
a well ordered method for attaining that purpose, nothing
but confusion can result. Let the anxious young
mother meditate well upon this, and before she sends
for governess or masters, and embarks in all the toil
and trouble of a school-room, let her try to settle
definitely in her own mind what she is aiming at.
Casting out all consideration of what particular acquire-
ments are the fashion-of what Mrs. So-or-So does with
her children-let her simply consider what she wishes
her daughter to become in after years, and how present
means can be made to conduce to that end.
How
many visions will then float before the anxious mind
of the many chances and changes of that course of life
which she must fit her child to meet. She will see her
joyous and bright, first entering society; the whole
present full of delight, the whole future full of hope,
gathering friends around her, whose character will
depend on the tastes, principles, and opinions education
is to form. She will see her placed in circumstances
of difficulty in which her power of judgment and decision
may influence her fate for years. She will see her,
among others, exposed to evil influence, and yielding to
or resisting it in proportion as education has trained
strength of character and purpose. She will see her on
the eve of that one fearful choice which fixes a woman's
fate for weal or woe, and feel all that depends then upon
the high or low tone of her mind, upon her power of
40
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
controlling feeling, upon her habits of acting on prin-
ciple; and all the consequences that must result from
these to others as well as to herself, as the new ties and
duties of married life gather round her, will rise up to
view. Or she may see her, free from those duties, walk
onwards alone; she may follow her through the gay
period of life till those years steal on when strength
must be gathered up from within to meet the indifference.
of society, the loosening of early ties, the loneliness of
home, the dreariness of the future; and still then, as atall
times, bearing her lot with cheerfulness or complaining,
influencing others for good or evil, winning esteem or
just escaping censure, according to the habits of her
own mind, the tone of her own feelings and sympathies,
and the worth of her own pursuits.
As the young mother looks through that long vista,
tears of anxious fondness may perhaps more than once
dim the vision and drop on the sunny brow of the child
But
whose future path her fancy has thus traced out.
will she not look at that child's daily training now in a
new spirit from having sought to follow out its conse-
quences? Will she not feel that there must be a pur-
pose in her education quite apart from questions of
what she is to know by the time she is eight, or ten, or
twelve, or in comparison with others? and that prepara-
tion for so wide a sphere of domestic and social duties
admits of no such low standard as that of custom or
fashion?
The universal object of education, as we have seen, is
to draw out all the capabilities of the human creature; to
give as far as means and opportunities will allow the full
measure of vigour, morally and intellectually, that each is
susceptible of receiving, without regard to peculiarities
of position or calling. But while this object ranks first,
PRACTICAL EDUCATION.
41
both in order of time and importance, it by no means
interferes with the necessity of a peculiar training for
the various active duties and pursuits that may fall to
the share of each. It is a fruitful source of error, as
we have seen, to look to this peculiar training for
principles of education, because it must ever be fluc-
tuating, and regulated by circumstances, but it is
scarcely less essential than the other to the welfare of
each individual. With the labouring classes this
practical education generally takes the shape of learning
some manual art, and is wholly removed from book-
learning, except as the habits trained by means of the
latter at school tell upon general character and capacity.
With the great mass of men who are above manual
labour, this second education comes in the form of pro-
fessional studies or apprenticeship to business, when the
latter is not of a kind to demand direct intellectual
preparation. With the wealthy, who are exempt from
professional toil, this period of their education should
make them acquainted with all social and political
questions on which, owing to their wealth and power,
they are likely to exercise influence-should train them
to be fit leaders of other men, and to feel the respon-
sibility of their position. With women the training for
the peculiar duties of their vocation depends rather
on a peculiar direction given to the primary and funda-
mental education than on the acquisition of any special
branch of knowledge.
A woman's active occupations as the mistress of a
household are too slight to require long apprenticeship.
Needlework, the only indispensable feminine art, is learnt
from childhood. Her more serious duties as a wife, a
mother, or a member of society, do not call for peculiar
forms of knowledge; it is the generally well-disciplined
42
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
and well-balanced mind that is needed to educate and
influence others, not vast stores of information, valuable
as they may be. We may say, then, that nothing
similar to a man's professional training is required for
women; but throughout their education it is needful
that the teacher should bear in mind the position her
pupils are to occupy, and modify, with reference to that,
the general mental and moral training she bestows.
She must consider, for instance, what are the peculiar
difficulties and trials, to meet which in a right spirit,
will call for the exercise of such or such a quality,
what intellectual or moral peculiarities the course of
woman's life is most likely to foster or to check, and
what, therefore, it is desirable to counteract or to
strengthen by education. She must remember that she
is not training one who is to take a part in active and
arduous employments, but one who, by the silent power
of example, by the general tone of character, opinion,
and views of life will exercise domestic and social in-
fluence, who will wield a moral sway rather than the
power of intellect or knowledge. The professional
avocations of men, or the employments marked out by
the possession of wealth and power, while they call for
a peculiar range of study, give also a decisive direction
to tastes and habits. With women, the direction of the
latter rests more with themselves, and must therefore
be a serious object throughout the course of education,
since on the latter will depend whether the direction
shall be a right one or not.
Another point to be considered by the teacher is
the very short period allotted to female education,
and the little chance that any errors that it may have
fallen into will be corrected by intercourse with society.
Not only is a man's education prolonged by college or
THE TEACHING OF LIFE.
43
professional studies, but the world into which he is
thrown to struggle, and toil, and compete with his equals
and superiors, must educate him in some measure,
whatever be the deficiencies of his early training.
The school is often a rude one-full of hard trial and
bitter mortification to many-but still it is a school by
whose searching discipline all but the most inert or
the most worthless must derive at least some intel-
lectual benefit; their powers of mind must in the
course of years be strengthened, and their knowledge
enlarged. The consequence is that, except among the
utterly idle, the man is always intellectually superior
to the boy; and the man of five-and-forty superior to
what he was at five-and-twenty. But we do not find
this so generally the case with women; nor is the
difference surprising when we consider the different
circumstances of their lives. At the age when boys.
exchange school for college, girls are taken out of the
school-room altogether, and books and study as a com-
pulsory occupation are set aside. When young men
who do not go to college exchange the intellectual
excitement of study for the far greater excitement of a
busy life, young girls exchange a quiet and regular life.
of rational occupation for the frivolous idleness of
society; for dress, gossip, and fancy-work; or, at best,
for some art or light pursuit taken up as an amuse-
ment, and they may live years in the world without
being aware of the pitiable barrenness of their own
minds. Or, perhaps, they marry at the age when
young men are just beginning the more serious part of
their education, and sink at once to the homely cares
of a household and nursery before they have acquired
any tastes or habits that will keep up mental activity,
having no settled pursuit, no love of knowledge, no
44
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
motive for intellectual exertion till their children want
education, and they feel themselves unfit to give it.
How is it possible that minds should not deteriorate
through such a course? If it be acknowledged that
stagnation is death to the intellect, how can the
faculties of women be expected to keep alive and
vigorous under its oppressive influence ? The result is
what we might expect. Women gain in worldly ex-
perience and the sad knowledge of life, but intellectually
their minds, far from enlarging and ripening, too often
contract more and more as they advance through those
long monotonous years from girlhood to old age.
Home cares and trials, suffering, religious meditation
and moral feeling-these have been their teachers
during that time, and in so far as they have influenced
mind and character doubtless improvement is seen;
the spirit has been chastened, and practical judgment
has been ripened, but the intellect has been allowed to
rust. In activity of thought and imagination, in
desire for knowledge, in power of reasoning, there is
in general no advance, while too many have fallen back,
as their minds, after their early studies were over,
ceased to be occupied with subjects that could keep
alive the spirit of intellectual activity. How often,
accordingly, is it seen that she who acknowledges that at
eighteen she read history or poetry with pleasure, will
at fifty read nothing but some book of light literature
from a circulating library, just as a change of occupa-
tion from carpet-work or letter-writing.
It is hardly necessary to remark how many excep-
tions there are to the truth of this melancholy state-
ment. In London especially, the mere tone of dinner-
table conversation, in all but the most frivolous society,
forces some degree of intellectual life, some curiosity
DIFFERENT EFFECT ON MEN AND WOMEN.
45
about what is going on beyond their own circle in that
great knowledge-gathering world, where life is so busy
and so intense. Still, the above is but too true a
picture of the ordinary state of things. The mere
impress of life upon the countenance marks the
difference in this respect between man and woman. The
former loses the beauty of youth no less than the
latter, but years have stamped his brow with thought,
and given it not unfrequently a nobler expression in
age than it had in early manhood; while a vapid look,
or a settled expression of care, or the meek gentleness
of long endurance, have replaced on the woman's face
the sunny brightness of girlhood. He has ripened
through the course of years-she has withered; his
powers have enlarged and gained in firmness and weight
what they may have lost in fire and brilliancy; hers
have been smothered under small cares, small pleasures,
and small interests. The most frequent exceptions are
among women who marry but have no children, and
thus rescued from nursery cares, to which so many
mothers limit their views of the office imposed upon
them by Heaven, have been driven to come out of their
own narrow sphere, and to take an interest in social
questions, or in their husbands' pursuits; or else among
women who have either married late, or not at all, and
who, left, therefore, as youth passed away, without the
excitement of new ties and positive occupations, have
drained to the dregs the wretched monotony of their
idle life, and have then turned to mental pursuits in
despair, to find in them at last a new spring of life—new
interests, new energy, new ties to the human race.
This is exactly what any rational system of educa-
tion would have supplied them with before. Leisure
and inaction are the sure trials they will have to
46
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
encounter. The teacher's object, therefore, must be to
cultivate tastes, to excite desires which shall keep the
mind awake in the utmost monotony of the outer life.
She will feel how earnest must be in her pupil's mind
the love of knowledge, the delight in the exercise of
thought, the bent towards self-improvement to enable
her to resist that malaria of idleness, and to supply her
with motives of exertion which she cannot, like men,
find on the busy arena of the world.
Assuming, then, these views of woman's life, and re-
garding education as that which is to fit her to meet its
various trials and emergencies, and to preserve in her
own mind a lofty purpose governing thought and action,
let us see what is the course it will pursue.
The task of education is twofold. First, to cultivate
moral and intellectual habits; secondly, to inspire love.
of knowledge. And this task is to be performed partly
by means of regular studies unfolding the mental capa-
cities, partly by example, by association and influence.
Ordinary systems of education aim simply at a given
standard of information. Certain things are taught
which it appears desirable that the pupil should be
acquainted with, and some vague expectation is
entertained that good habits will follow. And this
expectation is justified, doubtless, to some extent, since
it is probable that a certain measure of patience,
method, and power of attention must be acquired from
any regular study. But real education makes the form-
ation of habits the first object, to which acquirements
of every kind must be subordinate. It reverses the
above order, and selects the subjects of study with a
view to their effect in disciplining the mind, rather than
with reference to the actual value of the knowledge
imparted. For instance, though it might be more
ESSENTIALS AND NON-ESSENTIALS.
47
practically useful to us to know several languages than
to study Euclid, yet, if geometry were considered a
better school for reasoning, it would have the
doubted preference over the former. And so on through
all the variety of subjects that can be presented to our
choice.
Here we see the marked division between essentials
and non-essentials. The latter may include much that
is valuable and most desirable, but the former have a
character of their own; their object is not to enrich the
memory with information, but to train those habits of
mind, without which mental exertion is feeble and
almost worthless. If one study tends more than
another to exercise patience, or observation, or judg-
ment, that study takes place at once among the essen-
tials. Or should it be one which our means of home-
education will not allow us to follow, we must, in seek-
ing a substitute, be guided wholly by those considera-
tions. If obliged to forego the requisite discipline in its
best form, the purpose itself must not be set aside; for
our pupils must still, by whatever means in our power,
be taught to observe, to compare, to reason, to work
with accuracy, and patience, and method. Mere in-
formation must always be held subordinate to this.
In female education, the class of essentials includes.
also what will cultivate those tastes and excite that
desire for knowledge on which we must depend for
exercising the same beneficial influence over woman's
life that active and professional employment exercise
over man's. In cases where the means of intellectual
education are small, this great object must be accom-
plished by influence and association alone; and in any
case the subjects to be included under this head cannot
be rigorously defined. It behoves the teacher to study
48
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
closely the tastes and capacities of her pupils, to ascer-
tain through what avenue it will be most easy to intro-
duce the love of knowledge; what branch of inquiry
awakens the keenest interest; what form of truth will
most readily kindle the desire to seek below the surface.
of things, and to feel a pleasure in mental exertion.
Whatever promises this result takes rank among the
essentials of education, even though not of great im-
portance. When once the mind has been led to feel
that noble excitement, we may hope that we have laid
the foundation of future progress. The skilful teacher
can perhaps generally awaken the tastes which she
desires to see predominate; but, if not, she must do her
best with those her pupil evinces, never desponding so
long as the mind is not of that feeble cast which shows
no decided tastes of any kind-which seems equally
devoid of any natural bent or of energy to follow a path
pointed out by others. These are the cases of greatest
difficulty, and yet these are also the cases where it is
most important to discover in what direction the mind
can be made to work with most pleasure and alacrity.
Every pursuit, however worthy, which does not tend
towards one or other of these two objects-to excite
love of knowledge, or to form sound mental habits—
falls into the class of non-essentials. It is a matter of
choice, not of necessity; time may possibly be afforded
for such pursuits during the period of tuition, or atten-
tion
may be directed to them as desirable to be followed
up hereafter; but they form no part of the necessary
work of education.
The difficulty of framing a plan of study is thus
greatly simplified; adherence to those two divisions, and
to the principles which mark the distinction, makes our
task clear and definite. Still there is in each particular
LIMITS OF THE WORK.
49
instance room enough for choice to bewilder the inexpe-
rienced; and for this reason, I think it advisable to
propose a general course of study, and subsequently to
take up its several portions with some detail; not sup-
posing that it will in any case, perhaps, be implicitly
followed, but to illustrate my meaning, and to aid those
who may desire aid to apply the principles I deem so
important.
I must first premise, however, that it is not my
intention to enter into the subject of early education
further than may be needed to prepare the way for
what is to come after. I limit my observations to the
school-room education of girls, beginning at twelve
years old, and ending at eighteen. Those six years
constitute the proper period for that elementary in-
struction by means of which we hope to ground sound
principles of moral and mental development. Character
is then unfolding and taking shape, a permanent form
may be given to habits and tastes, and, when health is
good, sufficient vigour of body and mind is developed
to bear serious application with benefit. The word
elementary applied to the instruction may disappoint
some who, perhaps, expect that an
expect that an education so
anxiously cared for shall produce some perfect fruit;
but we may be satisfied if the fruit, though unripe, is
sound at the core; if our care has laid a secure basis
for future self-improvement; if, while cultivating worthy
motives of action, it has furnished the power and the
desire to learn, and left nothing to unlearn. Boys
leave school at that age avowedly only just fit to begin
serious study. Why are we to expect more than such
fitness from girls?
E
&
50
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Section 2.-All the aims and endeavours of intel-
lectual education resolve themselves into the culture
of the reason and the imagination. The various im-
portant mental habits enumerated above are all sub-
servient to the right exercise of reason, while the latter,
together with imagination, give the tone to moral
action and conviction. The proportions in which those
two great faculties are combined determine more than
anything else the power and cast of the mind and
character. Wherever the one predominates so much
as to overshadow and depress the other, we find either
on the one hand, want of accuracy, discrimination, and
vigour, or, on the other, too great rigidity and too
little inventive power, with a deficiency of warmth and
enthusiasm. Educational studies, therefore, must tend
to cultivate and to maintain a due proportion between
these two faculties, carefully forming the habits which
minister to the right exercise of reason, and cherishing
all that will help to refine and elevate the imagina-
tion.
One point is equally essential to both; namely, the
cultivation of the power of language. How far lan-
guage influences thought, how much of what the mind
elaborates is owing to the faculty of shaping our con-
ceptions in words, is one of those questions which it is
hopeless to solve; but viewed in relation to education,
we cannot doubt that it is no less indispensable to
cultivate the gift of language than the gift of reason.
Accordingly, Dr. Whewell remarks that educational
studies are mainly such as are fitted to educe two
principal faculties of man considered as an intellectual
(
* Of a Liberal Education in General, &c., p. 8.
GRAMMAR AND GEOMETRY.
51
being; namely, language and reason.' And, taking the
same view, Dr. Donaldson limits the elementary educa-
tion strictly to the studies which aim directly at the
cultivation of these two faculties. 'Mental culture,'
he says, or the discipline of the mind, depends entirely
on that system of logical teaching which gradually.
imparts the habits of methodically arrranging our
thoughts, and exercises the reasoning faculty in the
practical processes of deduction..
Educational
training will attempt what does not belong to its own
province if it does not confine itself to the development
of deductive habits-in fact, to teaching the method of
language; for in man, the only reasoning and speaking
creature, the thought is necessarily completed in the ex-
pression. Now, as far as the world has hitherto advanced,
there are only two forms under which this instruction
is possible on the one hand it appears as grammar,
which deals with the expression of our thoughts in
language; and on the other it presents itself as
geometry, which applies the rules of language to a
methodical discussion of quantities, magnitudes, and
proportions
up to this time the known
materials of deductive reasoning are exhausted in
grammar and geometry.'*
•
•
The culture of the imagination is forgotten, or
under-valued, by both these writers, when in the above-
quoted passages they give such exclusive predominance
to the cultivation of reason, and this omission has
been common in theories of education;† but so far as
* Classical Scholarship and Classical Learning, p. 19.
+ The small work on Home Education by J. TAYLOR is a remarkable
exception to this. His remarks on the training of the conceptive
faculty,' as well as on habits of observation, are well worth reading.
E 2
52
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
they go, we may go with them, and accept grammar
and geometry accordingly as the essential ground-
work of educational studies.
For those who are not accustomed to contemplate
subjects of this nature, it may be well to explain a
little further the nature of the benefit to be expected
from the study of geometry. Dealing with a subject
free from all ambiguity, in which certain strict defini-
tions and axioms limit all that is admitted into, and
supply all that is necessary for, the train of reasoning
pursued at the moment, there is nothing to divert the
mind from the one operation it has to perform, namely,
to prove whether a given proposition does certainly
follow from a proposition proved before. To borrow
Dr. Whewell's words, Geometry really consists entirely
of manifest examples of perfect reasoning: the reason-
ing being expressed in words which convince the mind
in virtue of the special forms and relations to which.
they directly refer.’*
In another place the same writer has well expressed
the influence of mathematical studies, and of geometry
especially on the mind. They 'familiarize the student,'
he remarks, with the usual forms of inference till they
find a ready passage through his mind, while anything
that is fallacious or logically wrong at once shocks his
intellectual habits, and is rejected. He is accustomed
to a chain of deduction where each link hangs from the
preceding, and thus he learns continuity of attention
and coherency of thought. His notice is steadily fixed
upon those circumstances only in the subject upon
which demonstrativeness depends, and thus that mixture
* Of a Liberal Education, p. 29.
VALUE OF GEOMETRY TO ALL.
53
of various grounds of conviction which is so common
in other men's minds is rigorously excluded from his.*
Now, it must be obvious to any one who attends to
this statement of the value of geometry, that it is not
a scientific value only, great as that is, but one which
tells upon our whole modes of thought and action in
daily life.
We all require to know whether a thing
which is brought before us be proved or not, and why
and where the proof fails. We all require to draw
correct inferences from any facts or propositions that we
are considering. When routine fails us, we shall no
more act rightly unless we have reasoned correctly, than
the blind man could walk with a safe step along a path
he has not trodden before. We all require to act
methodically, that is steadily and regularly towards an
established purpose, but we cannot do so unless we have
clear ideas concerning that purpose, and the means of
attaining it; and close attention and correct inference
are necessary towards having clear ideas. Therefore,
although we might never throughout life have occasion.
to conduct a serious argument, or to use consecutive
reasoning in matters of speculation, we should equally
need the habits which spring from cultivating the power
of close reasoning.
As a discipline for the reason, geometry is the only
portion of mathematics necessarily included in elemen-
tary education. Arithmetic claims to be admitted on
other grounds, and from its universal practical use is
equally indispensable. To a certain extent its claims
are indeed acknowledged by all; but women have hardly
been supposed to require more than will suffice for
* Thoughts on the Study of Mathematics, reprinted in Essay on
University Education, p. 138.
54
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
keeping household accounts. The advantage resulting
from the habit of ready and accurate reckoning, and from
ability to understand the method of calculations which do
not refer to domestic affairs has been too generally over-
looked, and consequently in very simple matters of busi-
ness women are wholly, and often ruinously, in the hands
of others. On such occasions, doubtless, there are often
other things to be studied and understood besides the
actual calculations, but if these offered no difficulty the
rest would soon be mastered. The apparently hopeless.
confusion of business to an ignorant person is in the
long columns of figures, and the new ways of dealing
with them. All the processes of arithmetic should be
made thoroughly familiar, and rapidity as well as
accuracy should be aimed at in working them. Con-
siderable progress may be made in this during childhood,
so that at the period I am now speaking of, the more
difficult portions only should require to be taught.
Geometry and arithmetic include all of elementary
mathematics which can be called strictly necessary.
But we have seen that in educating girls, essential studies
must extend to subjects which shall afford an introduc-
tion to those pursuits in which we hope to kindle their
interest. We must not leave them, when education is
nominally ended, with well-sharpened tools and no
employment for them, but rather initiate them into
actual work, in hope of rousing the spirit of inquiry
and of mental activity which will thenceforth find work
for itself. In this view some extension of mathemati-
cal study becomes necessary in order to prepare the
mind for understanding the great discoveries of physical
science. Dr. Whewell justly regards that man as below
the standard cultivation of his times who is not only
ignorant of, but incapable of comprehending, the great
6
VALUE OF ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS.
55
achievements of human intellect.'* And without some
slight knowledge of mathematics it is scarcely possible
to apprehend, even dimly, some of the mightiest of those
achievements.
How dim that apprehension must still remain with
such scanty knowledge as we can hope to impart, we
need not to be told; but it is certain that even some
acquaintance with elementary geometry enables the
student to approach any scientific subject in a different
spirit from one who has never gone through that pre-
liminary discipline. Not only is his mind open to the
perception of some of the most important relations with
which exact science deals, but he has some appreciation
of the clearness and method which science requires, and
a distinct apprehension of the difference between pro-
bability and demonstration, which is rare with those
who are accustomed to deal only with the loose forms
of ordinary language. A slight elementary course of
algebra will follow up the same object. The mind will
be opened to a new class of ideas, to the nature and
power of symbols, without which it is impossible to
have even the faintest conception of that weapon of
giant strength, by the aid of which some of the most
wonderful triumphs of science have been achieved. It
is true that we cannot with such scanty knowledge
attain to a clear conception, such as will satisfy the
understanding, but we open to the imagination the
magnificent arena of science; and we may rest assured
that each time the imagination has soared to a lofty
region and paused to contemplate order, and grandeur,
and beauty, a refining and strengthening influence has
been exercised over the whole nature.
* See Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 511.
56
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
To these first steps in mathematics I would add
some knowledge of the principles of mechanics.
only is this knowledge necessary, in order to understand
the simplest problems of physical astronomy, but in
itself the study offers many advantages. Few subjects
present so fine an example of the deduction of far-
reaching consequences from a few simple principles; and
this which can be appreciated without entering into the
mathematical difficulties of the subject, makes it second
only to geometry as an intellectual discipline. For
when we can awaken the perception of the fruitfulness
of great truths, when we have excited interest in them,
and led the mind to turn frequently to the contempla-
tion of them, we have given a habit of greater value
than knowledge itself. In a lower but still important
point of view, mechanics claim a place in educational
studies, as enabling us to look intelligently at the in-
genious and wonder-working machinery daily brought
to perfection, exhibiting such beautiful applications to
common use of those few great principles which form
the basis of some of the grandest discoveries in science.
Whatever prevents the young mind resting in indolent
ignorance within sight and reach of objects of interest,
whatever tends to form that intellectual condition in
which the spirit of rational inquiry kindles whenever
anything either not known before, or not understood,
is presented to observation, is of value in education.
Some acquaintance with mechanics, leading to an in-
terest in watching machinery, is also of use in calling
out the power and habit of observation, and of that
kind of observation that traces the adaptation of means
to ends, which impresses on the mind the necessity of
seizing leading points, and of distinguishing the essential
from the accessory, in order to observe with profit.
.
PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
57
Habits of observation are so essential to women, that
no means of cultivating them should be neglected.
Those whose power lies in influence, and whose business
is education, must depend greatly on their power of
observing character, slight indications of feeling, minute
circumstances as affecting health of mind and body;
and there are few habits more difficult to give in after
life to those who are naturally unobservant. Certain
moral defects are generally found in the latter, and
contribute to the evil result. These must be duly
checked; but to aid that moral discipline the intellec-
tual habit, and the knowledge of what constitutes nice
and accurate observation, must be given by study.
Science has been in general omitted altogether from
female education, or when attended to, it has been in
so slight a manner, through such meagre catechisms of
knowledge, that a superficial acquaintance with facts has
been the only result, reaching to no comprehension of
law or method.* I may be told that it is also omitted
in the education of boys; but without considering what
may be urged for or against this omission, I must
repeat that deficiencies of this nature are of far greater
consequence in the education of girls. We cannot
afford, in teaching them, to neglect any means by
which the value of accurate and definite ideas and of
strict reasoning can be impressed on the mind. When
the course of life is never likely to bring knowledge to
a practical test, we cannot labour too strenuously to
* Since writing the above, I have heard of some schools where
natural philosophy' is taught by professors; but, as far as I am able to
judge, the objects aimed at, and the results obtained, hardly give them
a claim to be excepted from the above censure; and in home education
the neglect is still so complete, that few governesses will be found com-
petent to give instruction on those points, or even to direct the reading
and questioning from books.
58
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
make the habits of the individual such as may supply
the want of that test.
Few
But apart from such considerations, how strangely
poor and unfurnished is that mind which remains igno-
rant of the great laws of the physical universe, shut out
from that magnificent field of thought and contempla-
tion which seems exhaustless in its resources!
things mark the frivolous intention of female education.
more than the complete neglect of any attempt to
excite an interest in these vast subjects, or even to open
the mind to their grandeur and importance. It is
common enough to hear it said, that education is to
give women resources in their monotonous home-life e;
but the resource of a real interest in subjects that are
occupying some of the finest intellects in every genera-
tion is not of the kind sought for. It is not uncom-
mon to find persons who have a smattering of several
languages, just enough to read second-rate works with
a master or a dictionary, or who have spent the price
of a moderate library on music and dancing-masters,
who have read many volumes recording military move-
ments they do not understand, and court intrigues it is
a gain to forget,-who remain contentedly ignorant of
every great law which the intellect of man has been
able to trace in the order of the universe, to whom it
would be the same if the sun were still believed to
revolve round the earth, or if chemistry were still in
the crucible of the alchemist; content, year after year,
to measure ribbons by the yard, heedless of how that
tool of vulgar use has been made to measure the starry
heavens; to see motion in all natural things and in all
machinery of human invention, and not care to inquire
how men have detected and applied these secrets of
nature ;—to live daily in sight of steam-engines and
DIFFICULTY OF CHOICE.
59
electric telegraphs, but ignorant of all concerning them,
except so far as they cheapen travelling, and convey
intelligence quicker than a mail-coach!
I
A large course of physical science is manifestly out
of the question in female education, and the exclusive
pursuit of one science, even supposing that could be
carried to any extent, is not only unfit for a school-
room course, but, for reasons I may enter into hereafter,
is not perhaps desirable for women at any time.
would propose such a course of reading as shall make
some of the leading facts and great laws of the physical
universe familiar to the pupil's mind. I desire that the
course should be such as to awaken interest concerning
these lofty inquiries, and to give power, in some small
measure, of understanding the method in which they
are conducted; it should lead the mind to contemplate
some of the great results which, besides their intrinsic
beauty, are, day by day, as mechanical invention waits
upon the steps of discovery, advancing the civilization
of the world and the power of man over external nature.
In the immense range of physical science, it is not
easy to choose the subjects to which it may be most
desirable to turn attention. Each, as we consider it,
seems too full of interest and value to be neglected.
Astronomy, which, in countless ages past, first kindled
in man the spirit of inquiry into the order of nature,
still stands unrivalled. The extreme interest of geo-
logical speculations, and the scope they afford to ima-
gination as they range over immense periods of ex-
istence, are exceeded only by astronomy. The beauty
of chemical laws and phenomena, carrying the mind in
contemplation from the minutest and commonest things
to powers that are almost sublime in their reach and
magnitude, make one loth to turn from the study they
60
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
offer, as well as from subjects in great measure con-
nected with them, such as magnetism and electricity; all
opening glimpses of a region of unseen forces, a world
unknown to our senses, which, while it opens to the
reason a field of the most abstruse investigation, strikes
the imagination almost with awe.
Difficult as it thus becomes to choose where so rich
a choice is before us, it is well, unless the pupil should
evince a very decided preference for one subject beyond
another, to be guided by the degree of mental discipline
each study will afford, rather than by their comparative
interest. For instance, with regard to natural history,
looking at the study in that point of view, we may
agree with Dr. Whewell that it has distinct claims as
an educational study, arising from its opening the mind
of the student to the nature of right classification, and
thereby tending to promote that great aim of intellectual
discipline, the substitution of clear and definite ideas
for what before were loose and ill-defined. This study
gives us, he says, 'in a precise and scientific form, ex-
amples of the classing and naming of objects, which
operations the use of common language leads us con-
stantly to perform in a loose and inexact way. In the
usual habits of our minds and tongues, things are dis-
tinguished or brought together, and names are applied
in a manner very indefinite, vacillating, and seemingly
capricious; and we may naturally be led to doubt
whether such defects can be avoided; whether exact
distinctions of things, and rigorous use of words be
possible. Now, upon this point we may receive the in-
struction of natural history, which proves to us, by the
actual performance of the task, that a precise classifica-
tion and nomenclature are attainable at least for a mass
of objects of the same kind. Further, we also learn
SUBJECTS PROPOSED.
61
from this study, that there may exist not only an exact
distinction of kinds of things, but a series of distinc-
tions, one set subordinate to another, and the more
general including the more special, so as to form a
system of classification. All these are valuable lessons.
If by the study of natural history we evolve in a clear
and well defined form the conceptions of genus, species,
and of higher and lower steps of classification, we com-
municate precision, clearness, and method to the intel-
lect through a great range of its operations.'*
For these reasons I would, when time and aptitude
allow, include some study of natural history in an
educational course, since it is by such considerations
that we must be guided amid the difficulties of making
a selection. Viewing other branches of science in that
light, I conceive then that some knowledge of the great
outlines of astronomy, of geology, and of physiology can-
not, without strong reasons, be omitted from a rational
education.
Astronomy scarcely needs to have its claims set
forth. In an educational point of view we must value
its completeness, its certainty. We see in it the ex-
ample of the perfect success of the most rigorous
scientific method, and the one form in which science has
reached her highest development, the power of pro-
phecy; while the extent of the results obtained, no less
beautiful in themselves than important in their daily
application, and the field opened to the loftiest flights
of imagination, all point it out as a subject on which to
* Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 515. Dr. Whewell
does not admit chemistry to have any claims as an educational study;
yet the beauty, precision, and elastic power of its nomenclature seem
to fit it to give, in some measure, lessons of the same kind as those
above pointed out.—(See Ibid. p. 514.)
62
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
be wholly ignorant marks us as alike indifferent to
scientific truth and to the grandeur of man's intellect.
Geology opens, as I have said, a field only second
in extent, and perhaps scarcely second in interest,
to astronomy. A large portion of the facts with
which it deals comes within range of ordinary obser-
vation, and thus interest is excited in a class of minds
that are not easily stirred by what is remote and
unseen. It has this advantage also of bearing upon
and receiving light from a great variety of subjects.
Natural history, comparative physiology, chemistry,
physical geography, all contribute to the speculations of
the geologist, and this vast range which we cannot hope
to explore, while it seems, at first, to be an objection
to including such a subject among educational studies,
is, in some respects, my inducement for doing so. If
girls were to study science with any hope of great pro-
ficiency, or for any definite practical purpose, it might
be essential to limit the field, and to bend all their
energies in one chosen direction. But this is not the
purpose we have in view. Our object is to give to
minds that will be exposed to narrowing influences as
wide an interest as we can in all that is worthily ex-
citing human thought and enterprise ;* and for these
reasons geology, which points out the connexion
between so many branches of research appears to me
likely to aid the mental discipline of education. The
more extensive the region into which we have just
glanced, and no more, the less possible will it be to
deceive ourselves with the notion that education and
study are over at eighteen.
* Reasons for encouraging a diversity of pursuits in women will be
given later in this chapter.
PHYSIOLOGY.
63
I have already explained the benefit to be expected
from teaching some of the classifications of natural
history. That study is also very favourable for form-
ing habits of observation, the special importance of
which to women I have spoken of above. Facts of
natural history are among the first things that awaken
a child's interest, and they may be made the means of
teaching how to observe, compare, and to perceive rela-
tions and analogies long before any notion of scientific
classification could be understood.
The claims of physiology to be included among the
subjects of elementary instruction are twofold, and upon
a very slight consideration become sufficiently obvious.
The interest of the subject in itself needs no comment,
and any study of natural history implies acquaintance
with the outlines at least of physiology. It is a
lamentable mark of ignorance or of the absence of an
inquiring spirit when we are indifferent to knowing
something of this frame of ours, this engine of life
so wonderfully wrought and sustained; and some
knowledge of its structure and functions is most im-
portant with a view to a rational care of health.
Persons who possess that knowledge, even in a very
slight degree, will often avoid illness, while they will
never suppose that their scanty information can be a
substitute for a physician's knowledge when illness is
actually present. Nothing so clearly reveals to us the
depths of our ignorance as a few well-defined notions
of the basis of real knowledge. Thus, the popular
saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,' is
true only when that knowledge is superficial as well as
scanty; not founded on accurate principles, but puffing
up the mind with conceit for what has been obtained
by a mere exertion of the memory.
(
64
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
It is most essential to women to have rational notions
of the conditions required for health, since they are
frequently, and in some cases almost constantly, in
charge of the health of others. The degree to which.
even the moral management of children is affected by
considerations of health, how necessary it is that the
latter should be always present to the parent's mind,
is sufficient to recommend the subject to women.
Physical well-being for life, all that makes existence a
pleasure or a burden, may depend on the judgment
shown in the care of health in childhood; yet most
women are left to pick up their knowledge of what
is absolutely indispensable from uneducated nurses at
the moment they need to use it, while the moral and
physical effects of their ignorance remain utterly un-
heeded. Nor is it as mothers alone that women would
feel the benefit of having sound principles on this subject
early instilled, and their minds turned to the study.
In their households, and often through a large circle
of their poorer neighbours, women of the upper classes
are called upon for medical advice, and give it, un-
fortunately, with great recklessness, when ignorant of
The direct duties
the simplest principles of medicine.
of sick nurse, which it falls to the lot of women in
every rank to perform or to superintend, enforce the
same lesson of the necessity of some knowledge of
medicine founded on acquaintance with the principles
of physiology, combined with those habits of accuracy,
order and observation which are formed by looking
at a subject scientifically. These are the qualities
which intellectual discipline contributes towards making
a person fit to watch over a sick room or over the
health of children;-the moral qualities indispensable
to complete the fitness, gentleness, patience, unselfish-
STUDY OF LANGUAGE.
:
65
ness, are cultivated by other means, but will not
suffice alone.
Such are the reasons for selecting these few subjects
from the vast field of science to make part of elementary
instruction. Besides the direct knowledge imparted,
such a course will suffice to awaken the spirit of
inquiry, to show the scope and aim of physical science,
and to bring to light the many links by which one
subject is connected to another, and each to all, till we
feel that interest on one point has opened so many
sources of fresh interest on others, that the longest
life and the most untiring efforts would be insufficient
to exhaust them. The whole course of scientific
reading will also carry on the discipline of the
reasoning faculty begun in geometry. The method of
scientific investigation, the mode of collecting and
weighing evidence, the tracing of effects to their causes,
the instances of abstract theoretical reasoning verified
by experiment, the philosophic spirit shown amid
doubts and difficulties. All these afford lessons which
the teacher will eagerly call to her aid in the
formation of her pupils' mental habits, and which she
will scarcely find in so admirable and accessible a form
in any other class of inquiries.
We come now to the second branch of essential
elementary education-namely, to the study of lan-
guage, which in truth can be considered second to
none, although for the convenience of arrangement I
have placed mathematics and the scientific reading
more or less connected with it in the first place.
Much discussion, amounting to angry controversy, has
been spent on the comparative merits, with regard to
mental discipline, of the study of mathematics and
language, as if there existed a necessity of choosing
F
66
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
between them. But waiving all such useless attempts
to exalt one noble branch of human knowledge at the
expense of another, it seems to me a simpler, as well as
a truer view, to consider them, in education at least,
as complementary one of the other, each supplying
some points which exclusive cultivation of the other
would leave too much out of sight.
It seems almost a waste of time to point out how
important is the cultivation of that faculty of speech
which, together with reason, is the great prerogative of
our human nature. The universality of the gift
perhaps encourages a belief that its exercise is too
natural and easy a thing to need much study. I
would ask persons who think so to compare the
language of children in different classes of society, and
then to try the labour of teaching them.
The ease
in the one case, and the difficulty in the other of con-
veying a new idea, of explaining any simple matter,
will afford the readiest illustration of the power of
language over the mind. That power can never be
measured in the constant action and reaction upon
each other of modes of thought and speech; but when
we remember that whatever the inner life of thought,
language alone gives it outward form and power over
others, we need no more to make us desire to possess
it in such perfection as our faculties will allow.
Nothing, perhaps, so clearly marks the really edu-
cated man as the method of his conversation, the logical
order in which he habitually expresses his thoughts.
Clearness of thought itself is undoubtedly the point of
first necessity; but without the study of words, and of
the relations of language, even definite ideas are not
brought forward with that clearness which affects the
minds of others. The nice distinctions which the study
ANCIENT AND MODERN LANGUAGES.
67
of grammar brings to light are distinctions of thought,
they are different modes of perception, different rela-
tions of ideas as affected by considerations of space and
time, the when and the where which modify all our
conceptions. The order in which the matter of dis-
course is set forth belongs to the whole mental con-
dition, according as we are, or are not, able to see the
just proportions of different parts of a subject, and to
arrange them accordingly-in other words, to deal
with it methodically; while the order of our words
betrays whether we are accustomed to value accuracy
and clearness, and to cast our thoughts into that form
which is most favourable to strict reasoning; the two
together are, as I said above, the sure indication of a
really cultivated mind.
It has been generally considered that this study is
best carried on through the medium of languages which
have once been the organs of highly cultivated intellects,
but whose forms are no longer subject to the fluctua-
tions that affect those which are used for the daily
purposes of life.
Such are the languages of Greece
and Rome; now dead to vulgar uses, but living for
ever as the utterance of genius in some of its highest
forms. Accordingly Greek and Latin have been gene-
rally used for that part of mental discipline which
depends on grammatical studies. But that knowledge
is not attainable by all; and where it is out of the
question, we must seek a compensation in the study
and comparison of modern languages. Although their
ruder grammatical structure may teach us less than the
almost perfect forms of the Greek, still we shall learn
to compare the modes of expression, and the different
constructions, to sift the principles of grammar from
the peculiarities of idiom, by which means the philoso-
F 2
68
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
phical idea involved in such or such rules becomes
more apparent. Dr. Donaldson justly remarks the
almost dangerous force of the associations of words.
used ignorantly in our native tongue; how they seem
almost to imprison thought, and render it difficult to
appreciate what belongs to forms of expression only,
and what to general principles; and he remarks accord-
ingly that the effect of learning a foreign language
'consists in the contrast of the associations it calls up
with those trains of thought which our mother tongue
awakens.'* Mr. Mill, also, in his Logic, speaks of the
disadvantage with regard to clearness of conception
which persons labour under who are acquainted with
their own language only :-' One of the advantages,'
he says, 'of having accurately studied a plurality of
languages, especially of those languages which eminent
thinkers have used as the vehicle of their thoughts, is
the practical lesson we learn concerning the ambiguities
of words, by finding that the same word in one language
corresponds, on different occasions, to different words
in another; when not thus exercised, even the strongest
understandings find it difficult to believe that things
which have a common name have not, in some respect
or other, a common nature.'t
There can evidently, then, be no hesitation about
teaching two or more languages, whether ancient or
modern, whenever it is possible; but this possibility
may not always exist, and it remains to be seen what
can be done for the study of language with the help of
our mother tongue alone. In some respects it presents
peculiar advantages for study, such as freedom from
* New Cratylus. Introduction, pp. 10 and 11. Second edition.
† Logic, vol. i. p. 86. Fourth edition.
AMBIGUITIES OF LANGUAGE.
69
difficulties of grammar and idiom, and the intimate
sense we have of the value and meaning of words
which secures us against being misled by seemingly
equivalent expressions. Etymologies are more easily
traced than in a foreign language, and thus the history
of the language, through its various phases of deve-
lopment, may be mastered with comparatively little
difficulty. Another important object of the study of
language considered as mental discipline-namely, the
acquisition of habits of accurate reasoning with an im-
perfect instrument, may likewise be attained by the aid
of our native tongue alone. Geometry is the best
school for the reason, and in some respects it is the
easiest; there is a lucid clearness over the path which
leads so unerringly from step to step; there is a light
thrown upon the nature of demonstration which can
no where else be obtained. But amid the changes and
uncertainties of actual life, when in business, in action,
or in study, we have to guard against our own igno-
rance and the prejudices or party views of others,
against the force of associations, and the influence of
feeling obscuring the perceptions of the intellect, we
find too little room for certainty, little or none for
demonstration. We must deal with words, and words
too often involve theories, themselves involving doubts
and consequences we are unable to calculate, while
action and conviction alike vainly seek a surer guide
than probability. Here the habits formed on geome-
trical demonstration alone would be too liable to fail,
or even to mislead us. In this vast region of per-
plexity, which embraces almost the whole actual expe-
rience of life, we must be able to reason with and
about words; that is, we must feel sure that the terms
we use stand for ideas as definite as study and an
70
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
honest purpose can make them. We must be sure that
we are not deceiving ourselves with the jugglery of
words, because no positive proof can be brought for or
against what we maintain. The method of strict rea-
soning is first acquired in the school where nothing can
obstruct its progress; but we must learn to carry that
same method into more complicated subjects. Each
step is really made in the same manner from inference
to inference; the difference is in the grounds upon
which the inference is founded. It is obvious, there-
fore, that while the best means of acquiring the habit
of performing that operation surely and rapidly is
where the grounds are perfectly certain, it is equally
necessary that judgment should be exercised in reason-
ing where the grounds are doubtful.
For this purpose it is needful that we should study
the forms of language, the nature of metaphorical ex-
pressions, and of that wide class of terms which involve
more or less of opinion, while they seem to state only
facts. We must learn in what manner language can
be reduced to the forms of strict reasoning, so that we
may see where any ambiguity lurks-whether in the
mere expression which can be rectified, or in the nature
of the subject, which can only be guarded against.
These objects, for which some study of logic becomes
necessary, will doubtless be facilitated by that command
over several languages which aids us in detecting am-
biguities, yet with somewhat closer labour we may
manage to dispense with that advantage. It appears,
therefore, that for several of the purposes which make
the study of language indispensable in education, we
are not seriously hindered by ignorance of other tongues,
whether ancient or modern? Knowledge of the ancient
languages, from which sprang so large a portion of those
now living, whose literature influenced for generations
!
IMPORTANCE OF OUR NATIVE LANGUAGE. 71
the whole tone of thought and association in modern
Europe, and influences it yet-is indeed most desirable;
and whenever opportunity allows, it should be made the
groundwork of linguistic study. The modern tongues
sake, apart from the
also are valuable for their own
considerations we have dwelt upon here, and should un-
doubtedly be learned when it is possible. But the one
indispensable study is that of our native language,
whether with or without others. How then can we
avoid returning to the oft-repeated accusation against
female education, when we find that while it makes the
teaching of modern languages one of its boasts, it has
in great measure neglected the only essential one-that
language which is our birthright, which is not only
precious to us on the highest intellectual grounds, but
which is dearer to us than we perhaps ever know till
after the silence of years had made a long divorce of
cherished associations they all spring up around us
again at the first sounds that greet us as we return to
our native land. It is a great privation to be unac-
quainted with any foreign language; to forfeit the
advantages which they give us as intellectual discipline,
and to know only in the pale reflex of translation some
of the finest masterpieces of human genius; but it is a
disgrace not to have a competent knowledge of our own
language, and of the literature which has made it
glorious. How is it possible to believe that it is a love
of literature or admiration of genius which prompts
the desire to understand Tasso and Schiller,* while
* Even this result does not always follow from the ordinary teaching.
Young ladies who have spoken German for years with a governess, have
been unable to read Schiller. The limited vocabulary of gossiping
talk does not include the language of a high class of literature. After
years spent in learning the forms of French or Italian, it is common to
find that their great writers are unknown. What then, except obedience
to fashion, prompts the learning?
72
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Milton and Shakspeare are known in mere scattered
fragments, and Spenser, Dryden, Bacon, Burke, Addi-
son, even the eloquent writings of our old divines, are
almost closed books. It is indeed a strange perversion,
but the method in the madness proves that the same
evil principle runs throughout-the same sacrifice of the
solid and rational to the showy and superficial.
That important part of education which relates to
the cultivation of imagination belongs also, in great
measure, to studies connected with that of language.
I have spoken above of scientific truths and speculations
as appealing strongly to the imagination; but literature,
and especially the higher forms of poetry, tend directly
to cultivate and refine it. There is a strange distrust
in many minds of this faculty, which in its higher mani-
festation is the loftiest power of the human mind; and
which, even when not gifted with the creative energy
that makes it sublime, is at least the source of some of
the most ennobling pleasures we are capable of feeling
on earth. Its excesses, its perverting power, seem to be
dwelt on more frequently than its elevating tendencies,
and it is overlooked that those very excesses are the
result of natural power misdirected and unchastened.
It is probably this kind of dread which has caused the
culture of the imagination to be, as I remarked before,
overlooked in ordinary systems of education. But
cultivation, while it calls forth and strengthens a
naturally feeble faculty, refines, exalts, and directs the
strong one, which if left to itself follows a wayward
course, and produces the very evil we feared. The
antagonistic power to imagination is the understanding;
but it would be a strange delusion to expect that
because the former was neglected the latter would
acquire strength.
The feebleness we daily see in un-
IMAGINATION.
73
On
imaginative persons is a sufficient proof of this.
the other hand, let the reasoning power be carefully
trained—let a due sobriety of mind be habitually main-
tained by serious pursuits and duties, and the power of
imagination need cause no alarm.
It is strange that the moral effects of want of
imagination should be so constantly overlooked. The
coldness, the want of tact, the want of sympathy of the
unimaginative make them as unloveable as they are
uninteresting, and peculiarly unfit them for holding a
position of moral influence, such as that which belongs
to women. Nor does it follow that they are free from
the faults that are generally ascribed to a different tone
of mind, from subjection to feeling, for instance, rather
than to judgment, or from love of excitement. With
regard to the latter, the desire for it may be all the
stronger in proportion to the slowness of the mind in
feeling it; and when the intellect is least susceptible of
it there is the greater fear of its taking a more dangerous
direction. Of this we may be certain, that imagination
is a better safeguard against frivolity than either dul-
ness or apathy, which leave the mind exposed to ennui.
The unimaginative are not necessarily studious or
reflective, but they are probably wanting in speculative
faculty, and therefore not likely to think much or
deeply unless upon some actual business they are
engaged in, while for amusement they are likely to read
novels which a taste for fine poetry would have rendered
tiresome or offensive.
We may neglect this precious faculty, and in those
who are naturally gifted with it, it will become wild
and wayward, while the material interests of life will
probably remain all in all to others. But it would be
well for us to remember that all which gives a spiritual
74
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
charm to the daily intercourse of life, all that gives
generosity to benevolence, and a soul to love, and
heroism to self-sacrifice, all that makes the earnestly
religious mind live for the future and the unseen, and
triumph over the power of the senses, all that makes
the human heart glow with rapture, and thought soar
through countless worlds to the throne of the Almighty,
is due to imagination. The purifier, the consoler, the
liberator amid the trammels, the sufferings, and the evil
of our actual existence.
It is sufficiently obvious how much the study of
language leads us to examine the operations of our own
minds. Literature and poetry, by exciting interest in
the delineation of character and feeling, and in the
various manifestations of intellect and of moral senti-
ment, carry that habit still further; the young mind
that has been properly guided through these studies is
no longer an unobservant or unreflecting spectator of
life. Historical reading will exercise the same habit
on a wider scale; exciting the same train of thought
when action and character are exhibited among large
numbers and over long periods of time which before
had rested upon individual contemplation.
As a mere narrative of events, history is important;
no mind, raised ever so little by education above mere
animal existence, can be so dead to all interest as not
to care to inquire something of the fate of past gene-
rations-how the world we live in assumed its present
aspects—when the familiar names daily upon our lips
first bore their present significance? The feeling, almost
amounting to emotion, with which we contemplate a
ruin, an excavated tomb, a half-defaced inscription,
proves how deep within our souls lies the source of his-
torical interest. Those who most decry the value of the
HISTORY.
75
But
study, do so merely on the ground that we have not
materials on which to found a correct judgment, or to
arrive at certain truth. Correct knowledge of the
outlines, at least, of history, of the course of events
which have changed the aspect of the world and
brought man in different countries to the condition in
which he exists at present, is then properly a part of
elementary instruction. And to give this correctly,
geography is necessarily included in the study.
the real value of historical reading, as part of an edu-
cational course, is that it affords the first, and indeed
for women generally, the only means of carrying
beyond the scrutiny of individuals that study of human
action and motives, and of the practical bearing and
working of great moral and intellectual principles,
which is so important a part of our knowledge. The
scenes of home-life to which women are restricted,
afford a very narrow sphere for this great study, and
feelings and partialities come in to distract the judg-
ment. But on the wide field of history we can hope to
be impartial. There, through the course of ages and
the extent of the civilized world, every motive of action,
every delusion, every high impulse, every base passion,
has played its part, and can be seen unveiled; and
nothing within the narrow experience of individual life
can afford to the teacher such valuable materials for
forming her pupils' judgment, for enlarging their sym-
pathies, and exciting in their minds the love of specu-
lation on subjects of wide and stirring interest.
Such a study, it need hardly be said, is not for
children. The mind must be gradually led up to the
capability of engaging in it. When the rules of right
reasoning have been learnt, together with the methods.
of sifting evidence and arriving at probable truth, then
76
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the intellect is ripe for that study which is to help in
forming judgment on all those questions which most
affect our social and individual welfare. In short, it is
a study which must be begun in the school-room, for the
sake of establishing right principles, but which rather
cultivates a tendency towards pursuits to be followed
hereafter than promises much result for the present.
Intelligent interest in social, moral, and political
questions is very important to women, who not only
hold a position in which their feelings and prepos-
sessions, as well as their opinions, exercise great in-
fluence, but who also are all more or less concerned with
education. We cannot expect much skill in that dif-
ficult art of moulding character, of forming associations.
and feelings in the young, from those who have not
themselves studied the principles whence motives and
action spring, who are not habitually observant of these
things, and interested in considering moral and mental
development. Women who spend their early youth
in trifling pursuits, enter suddenly upon one of the
most responsible offices that can fall to a human being
to perform, and begin their study of the human mind
when they view it individualized in the child they love
with an intensity which seldom perhaps leaves the most
practised judgment wholly clear. They have to learn
at the moment when they must begin to act, and what
they love most consequently suffers most from their
ignorance.
It is quite true that some persons have what seems
an almost intuitive perception of character, and possess
in consequence a moral influence which brings children.
especially under their entire sway. Again, we see
mothers who seem to mould their children's feelings by
the mere force of pure and high example, joined to the
STUDIES ESSENTIAL TO WOMEN.
77
devotion of that love which truly passeth understand-
ing;' but we have no right to expect such power, or
such results. In educating girls, we must remember
that they are to be fitted to have the charge of educa-
tion, and we should give, therefore, that general impulse
to their studies which shall direct their future reading
to subjects bearing on that essential part of their na-
tural vocation. Nor, fortunately, is it a difficult task
to do so; at least I have had occasion frequently to
note a difference in this respect between men and
women. Supposing some taste for reading to be
kindled for the first time in a man, he will, in general,
turn, even without any distinct purpose in view, to
what is practical and positive-to party politics, for
instance, or applications of science; while women will
be more readily interested in moral speculation, and
all that bears on individual life and conduct. The
fact, such as it is, admits of ready explanation. It is
pointed out here merely as indicating the aid which
natural inclination may be expected to give towards
what should be an earnest aim in female education.
The studies now briefly passed in review, namely,
elementary mathematics and outlines of certain por-
tions of natural philosophy, grammar-studied through
the means of one or more foreign languages as well as
our own, if circumstances permit-English literature
and history, both as narrative and as a moral study,
form the course which, as far as I am able to discern,
will best fulfil the twofold object education must strive
to accomplish. The cultivation of sound mental
habits and the necessity of kindling love of knowledge,
have been kept in mind throughout. Each study has
been recommended for a distinct educational purpose,
since, even what appears to have merely the extension
78
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
of knowledge in view, is chosen for the sake also of
bringing the mind into a fit condition for meeting
those sure trials of woman's life-leisure to be frivolous,
and the absence of all ambitious motive for mental
exertion.
I fear that some will think this course presents too
wide a range for the studies of six years, beginning at
twelve years old, while others may think it must
necessarily be so superficial that its utmost compass
will be little worth aiming at. I believe both classes of
objectors would find themselves mistaken on the whole,
though they would be right according to one view of
the subject. To judge the question fairly, it is
necessary to remember that the great purpose in laying
down a scheme of educational study is to frame it on
a right method. It is of real value only when every
step made by the pupil is so ordered that it shall be
the safe starting-point for a further step. If the
course here proposed were offered as likely to produce
a complete work, a finished pyramid of knowledge at
eighteen, it might well be called too arduous, or be
laughed at as too superficial; but my object is merely
to lay a right foundation for future labour, by the
means of certain studies, followed with method and a
definite purpose.
I propose that the scheme of school-
room study should be the framework of a
extended scheme, where nothing will have to be dis-
placed, no proportions changed, where every future
acquisition will find its fitting link of association, so
that the whole mental store may be laid up in har-
monious order, instead of becoming a patchwork of
incongruous fragments. The fact, therefore, that little
progress can be made in those several studies is not,
according to my view, an objection to the system, for
.
more
RIGHT METHOD THE GREAT AIM.
79
I think there are sufficient reasons for wishing, in the
education of girls, to break up the ground in various
directions rather than to attempt leading them, perhaps
somewhat further, towards one or two objects. When
we have opened several paths before them, we shall
leave them free and able to choose hereafter whither
they will direct their steps. The studies here proposed
will be more or less slight, according to the pupils'
capacity. In their slightest form they will lay a
methodical foundation, and train the mind to right
habits, whether for study or practical life; in their
most extensive form they can aim at little more. The
edifice will be raised a few feet more or less, but the
ground-plan remains the same, and if that be wisely
laid, each addition made now or hereafter will be in
harmony with the original design.
It is no reproach to women to say their knowledge
is small upon any subject as long as it is solid, and
that they are aware of its small extent. This is enough
to distinguish them from the superficial, who are equally
ignorant of the fundamental principles of what they
pretend to know, and of the vast extent of the know-
ledge at which they have only glanced. Great know-
ledge is seldom within woman's reach, unless her
natural powers be such as to defy obstacles. In
education, were we to apply ourselves wholly to one
subject, the work achieved must still necessarily be
very imperfect at so early an age, and we forfeit the
advantages of trying the tastes and capacities, and
enlarging the interests and sympathies. Once more,
it is not profound knowledge that women require,
either for themselves or society, but the cast of mind
that results from the love and pursuit of knowledge.
It has been objected that the mind itself is not
80
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
benefited by great variety of pursuit; that the power
of concentration, which is the source of vigour of
thought, is injured by it, and this, no doubt, to a
certain extent is true. But devotion to one subject,
or to a very limited range, which favours concentra-
tion of thought in minds of any power and under
favourable circumstances for study, is more likely,
with ordinary minds and under the unfavourable in-
fluences of woman's life, to lead to contracted views
and to indifference to all beyond the chosen pursuit.
Where much depth is out of the question, it appears
evident that we cannot be gainers by limiting the
surface.
(
As a question of happiness, I believe devotion to one
pursuit not to be desirable for women. They are not
destined to achieve greatness,' and the means of doing
so are seldom open to them, even had they the power.
The exceptions are so few that we may lay it down as
a general rule that no gentlewoman is independent
enough to follow the bent of her own mind, till she has
reached an age when neither tastes nor habits can be
altered. In a lower rank of life there is less depen-
dence on the forms of society; but this comparative
freedom is only the result of another dependence—that
of poverty, which drives a young woman to self-exer-
tion. But among the few openings then before her,
there is none which offers a hope of high distinction or
a reward for severe mental labour. Unmarried women
living under their parents' roof have neither time nor
money at their disposal for any object peculiarly their
own. Their movements, their hours, their society, are
regulated by the views of others.
When they marry,
the increase of freedom is often little more than nominal,
while in some respects they are more dependent than
MENTAL SYMPATHY.
81
before. These are points which it is folly to lose sight
of in laying down a scheme of female education, and
we need but contrast this mode of life with the course
a man pursues who is devoted to one study, and earnest
in following it, to see how impossible a successful pursuit
of that kind would generally be to a woman ; and
wherever we have given much time or labour, success is
an indispensable condition of happiness.
The latter will be better consulted by giving to
women a considerable range of mental occupations,
which allows of one being pursued when another is
hindered, and enables them to fall readily into the
pursuits of those around them. In a life so exposed to
narrowing influences it is desirable to create as wide an
interest as we can in all that is worthily exciting human
thought and enterprise. It is desirable to link an in-
active existence with the stirring world without by all
the ties which can be created by pleasure in the same
inquiries, and sympathy in the hopes and endeavours of
those who are labouring actively in the various fields of
research. Mental sympathy, which men rarely give in
full measure to each other for the very reason that
engrossed in labour or ambition, they can seldom come
sufficiently out of themselves to enter earnestly into the
hopes and object of another-this mental sympathy is
the surest bond of friendship between man and woman.
The latter has no feeling of rivalry, no mortification in
meeting a superior, and frankly and freely, and with
something of that glow of feeling which always perhaps
animates the intellect of women, she can feel for his
difficulties, rejoice in his success, enter into his views
and hopes, or try to lighten his toil. Such friendship,
which vulgar minds may deride, and to which vulgar
gossip may often give another name, is a truly precious
G
82
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
treasure, and in a different manner beneficial to both.
Even this reflex glow from the ardour of active life or
of a noble ambition, gives something more of animation
to the lonely and secluded existence of many women;
and would it not be well if in married life this element
of happiness were more often found? The additional
charm thus given to the most affectionate intercourse.
needs no description; but would not the charm work in
some degree even under less happy circumstances?
Would there not at least be more peace, more cheer-
fulness, greater mutual respect, if minds could meet,
even when hearts are partially estranged?
Section 3.-In laying down a plan in a work like
this, the method is truly everything, since it can but
seldom happen that its details can be followed step
by step as they are given. Means, situation, ability,
health, all bring in a variety of considerations that
tend to modify in each family the adoption of any
system of education. The utmost a writer can do is
to set forth and illustrate general principles, the parent
must still judge ultimately of their mode of applica-
tion. But it must be remembered that minds ac-
customed to act upon system are alone capable of doing
this with profit. They alone, when a plan requires to
be either enlarged or curtailed to suit particular cir-
cumstances, are fit to discern how the alteration should
be made without sacrificing the main purpose. Un-
methodical minds are not aware that the importance
of a thing is often less owing to its own intrinsic value.
than to the place it occupies, to the relation in which it
stands to something else, and they change or displace
at random, according to convenience or inclination.
VALUE OF GOOD TEACHERS.
83
It will be evident from the foregoing remarks that
the one indispensable condition is that the master-
principles of education, together with a spirit of method,
should govern the teacher's mind. No course of study,
however varied or expensive, can otherwise be expected
to yield much fruit; while under such a teacher far
narrower means may be made to attain the essential
points. It is not the book but the method in which a
book is studied which disciplines the mind. We may
learn grammar, and know nothing beyond the dry
parsing of a sentence. We may read poetry and not
acquire one notion of taste, or feel our imagination
either elevated or refined. We may read history and
not derive from its perusal one lesson of morals or
politics. We may go through the most valuable
scientific treatises and bring away nothing but facts.
We may pore over Euclid
Euclid and never learn to
reason upon anything beyond the propositions there
demonstrated. No cunningly devised system will
educate without an educator. As well might we expect
machinery to do its work without being directed by one
that understands its parts and their movements.
ruling mind is needed at every step in education, and
more especially in the home education of girls, where
so much is left to choice, and where, as I said before,
the errors committed will rarely find correction in after-
life.
A
The success of self-educated men, which appears, at
first sight, to be in contradiction to the extreme im-
portance I have ascribed to the teacher's influence, is
rather, if rightly viewed, a corroboration of it; for all
the qualities I have mentioned as indispensable in one
who would direct education already exist in the minds
of those who are impelled to direct their own education
G 2
84
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
and to seek knowledge for themselves. Love of know-
ledge, patience, resolution, the art of making small
means minister to great purposes, these must belong to
him who has been capable of feeling the need of educa-
tion and of supplying the want by his own unassisted
efforts. The labour of studying without help must
also necessarily quicken intelligence and exercise judg-
ment, and train some habit of reasoning, and some care
in seeking the right method to work. When this
spirit is in the learner, the teacher sinks in importance.
The strong motive is the schoolmaster never absent
from his post. Yet, I believe that most self-educated
men would confess how much waste of time and faculty
would have been spared them by good teaching. At
any rate, these exceptional cases do not alter the general
truth, that the quality of the teacher's mind is of more
importance than the means and circumstances of the
education.
I have said before that in speaking of the education
of girls, teacher is really synonymous with mother; at
least that the latter must inevitably exercise a degree
of influence which makes any other almost nugatory.
It is not, indeed, necessary that she should be able to
give instruction in the different branches of study, but
that she should have maturely considered the purpose
of that instruction, and be able to keep the ultimate.
purpose steadily in view.
In a word, the tuition may
be left to others, but the spirit and method of the
education must be given by her. Till women, there-
fore, are better prepared for this portion of their
maternal office-till they are more often sufficiently
educated to feel at least an equal interest in the duties
of the school-room as in those of the nursery, we can
hope only for partial improvement.
NARROW CIRCUMSTANCES.
85
Even with the most scanty means, the mother who
is thoroughly impressed with the value of education
and with the essential purpose of mental discipline,
will not lose sight of, or feel herself constrained to
neglect its most important parts. I am anxious to
press this remark, lest some should object to my plan
of essential studies that it is beyond the compass of
many who can afford but little in the way of teaching
for their children. In the first place, we may remark
the inexpensive character of the studies I propose com-
pared with accomplishments and foreign languages.
But, supposing the most rigid economy necessary, I
should wish to prove that a well-educated mother will
still manage to secure for her daughters some of the
best results of mental discipline, in defiance of homely
cares and want of assistance.
Good books are so cheap in the present day, that it
must be very seldom that education is really hindered
for want of the means to procure them. If regular
tuition cannot be provided, while the mother's own
time is very much taken up with other duties, she may
so manage still that the qualities drawn forth in her
children by the necessity of studying, in great measure,
alone, and the greater effort of patience and intelligence
required, shall compensate, as regards mental discipline,
for the slighter progress made. Even where, as must
happen when means are very narrow, books and leisure
for regular teaching are altogether scanty, the circum-
stances and practical duties of life may, by a judicious
mother, be made to serve, in great measure, as sub-
stitutes for study in exercising judgment and observa-
tion, in forming habits of decision, of method, and
accuracy. The very privation of books and leisure
may become a means of stimulating a desire for know-
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
ledge which will seem as the privilege of a more
favoured condition, and every glimpse of which may
be treasured as the working man treasures his rare
holiday.
Young persons so trained will, of course, be very ill-
informed; and for boys, to whom a certain amount of
positive knowledge at a given age is indispensable to
insure their favourable entrance into a profession, such
disadvantages would be a real misfortune; but girls
have no intellectual task awaiting them-their well-
being will depend not on what they know, but upon
their general cast of mind and character. Let mothers
comfort themselves, therefore, with the assurance that
even such hindrances as I have described cannot rob
their daughters of some of the best fruits of mental
training, and that their minds will be ripe for intel-
lectual cultivation, should the opportunity ever present
itself. Unfortunately, few parents seem to appreciate
the advantages that may be derived from the peculiar
circumstances of their position. It is common to hear
mothers regret that they cannot afford to give their
daughters the same education that other girls receive,
and with this sterile expression of regret their care
ceases. The natural consequence is, that their daugh-
ters, being allowed to grow up amid desultory house-
hold occupations, remain no less incapable of the sys-
tematic industry, management, and economy, of the
sound judgment, foresight, and decision in practical
matters, which those homely duties might have taught
them, than of the logical reasoning and clear apprehen-
sion which result from intellectual cultivation.
If this should seem to be in contradiction to what I
have said of the value of intellectual culture, or if any
unreflecting persons, willing to get rid of the toil of
THE HOMELY AND THE FRIVOLOUS.
87
study, and to see women confined once more within the
limits of household occupations, should infer that intel-
lectual labour is useless in female education, I can only
reply that the inference is unfair as the conclusion.
would be unsound. I have here supposed the case of
a mother fully aware of the benefits of mental dis-
cipline, having studied and reflected upon the subject
herself, and striving, in the midst of the homely duties
to which she is forced to give her time, to form those
habits, and infuse into her children's minds those tastes
which will make them naturally turn to the pursuit of
knowledge, should leisure to do so ever be theirs. It
is hardly necessary to point out the contrast between
such a mother and one who neglects the better means
of education she might have commanded. Neither must
we forget that the social position which allows time and
money to be spent on education is also that which
affords abundant leisure and an opening to all its perils
and temptations. The mother placed in that position is
not herself occupied with household business, except
in the way of general superintendence; and therefore,
in neglecting studies for practical matters she would
not be setting an example of obedience to duty, but
merely of capricious preference of the homely to the
intellectual. Necessary needlework, or other still more
menial occupations may, as I have pointed out, be
made to afford valuable lessons; but not so a frivolous
occupation. In the one case the highest use is made.
of the poorest means; the highest aim is kept steadily
in view through the most unpropitious circumstances.
In the other case the amplest means and fullest oppor-
tunities of working out the best purposes of education
are scorned and neglected. The moral effect of follow-
ing such a course would be worse than the intellectual;
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
for where there is time for noble and elevating occupa-
tion, and children see the preference given to the servile
or the trivial, a lesson is taught whose baneful influence
will not easily be effaced.
The fashion of the day, however, points so strongly
towards a variety of elegant accomplishments that
there is, perhaps, little need of this warning against
the deliberate choice of homely occupations. In some
respects it is more often necessary to remind mothers
of the importance of household skill, and that they are
educating not artistes, but women to whom the care
and comfort of families will one day be trusted. But
the warning may stand as a protest against more than
one form of error or ignorance. The preference of the
frivolous to the solid is equally, if not more mischievous
than that of the homely to the intellectual, and far
more common. Both proceed from the same blind-
ness to the real purposes for which it is desirable that
the human faculties should be trained.
89
CHAPTER III.
MORAL TRAINING AND INFLUENCE OF HEALTH
UPON CHARACTER.
SECTION 1.-In considering the course of study
to be pursued during the six years to which my
remarks on school-room education refer, the subject will
be divided, for the sake of clearness and convenience,
into different periods. But there are certain points of
moral training which cannot conveniently be so treated,
and which it will be well therefore to consider in the
first place. It is true that the whole course of intel-
lectual and of moral culture must proceed hand in hand;
and the results of the former,-knowledge, ripened judg-
ment and power of reasoning, will bear upon the whole
tone of character; but it would be an interruption to
refer at every stage of our remarks upon study to the
moral improvement which should be going on at the
same time, and to the difficulties from moral causes
which the teacher may have to encounter. We will
glance, then, here at certain indispensable points which
can never be left out of sight through the whole course
of education, such as truth, and the control of temper,
while others will be referred to in speaking of the
studies selected for the purpose of fostering or check-
ing some characteristic quality.
I wish also to say a few words on the effect of health
90
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
upon character, which appears to me to be too little
considered in education.
The first business of the governess, before she can
decide on any plan of lessons, must be the careful
study of her pupils' dispositions and capacities; the
former especially, as the most difficult, and as affecting
her future labours far more than the state of their
knowledge or their power of learning. Supposing, as
I do, that children are not placed under her care till
twelve years old, character has already acquired many
fixed lines, and is more developed for good or for evil
than the intellect. If the governess is left to enter
upon this task unaided, it will prove both a long and
a troublesome one; for children rarely betray at once
to a stranger either their best or their worst qualities;
nor without knowing something of their previous life
and training, does she possess the key to their peculiar
habits or turns of feeling. We may venture, however,
to hope that the cases are comparatively rare in which
the mother's knowledge of her children does not come
in to aid the observations of the governess. She,
whose care it should have been to watch every change,
to note each new shade of character as it developed
from the first hours of conscious existence, ought to be
able to furnish the governess with information which
the most careful observation would hardly enable her to
obtain for herself till perhaps much time had been
wasted, and many attempts made in a wrong direction.
Even if the mother in detailing the early education of
her children should betray her own ignorance of the
subject, her very errors will enlighten the governess.
The latter will see where she is to look for deficiencies,
and what is the root of any faulty conduct she may
observe.
DIARY KEPT BY THE GOVERNESS.
91
I have little doubt that a journal of a child's life in
which should be carefully noted peculiar traits of cha-
racter, indications of intelligence, or of deficient under-
standing, of strong tastes or dislikes, as also the first
occurrence and occasion of certain faults, the system
adopted to subdue them, and the result obtained, would
be of great service to the governess who undertakes the
subsequent management of the same child. Doubtless,
also, such a record would be very useful to the mother
herself in dealing with younger children. It might
save many of those painfully mischievous attempts to
subject different characters to the same treatment, by
pointing at once to the differences which exist in cir-
cumstances or conduct which the inaccuracy of memory
would class as similar.
A journal of the same description kept subsequently
by the governess would in like manner have consider-
able advantages in helping her to pursue her plans
more systematically; referring back from time to time
to the experience of the past month or year, and en-
abling her to measure accurately the progress made
both morally and intellectually. A careful mother
would naturally desire to see this journal, and the
knowledge that it would be subjected to her inspection
would insure regularity in keeping it. A record so
kept and read, and talked over together by the mother
and governess, would assuredly give to both a more
accurate estimate of what they had accomplished and
of what remained to be done, and secure a more steady
co-operation on the same system, than could be attained
by mere unwritten observation and the desultory com-
munications made in conversation.
Moral training is the proper business of those early
years when the whole nature is in its most pliant state;
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
awake to impressions and feeling, but unfit for mental
exertion. When the mother has given her earnest care
to this most important duty, a girl of twelve years old
should come into the hands of a governess requiring little
more in this respect than watching upon those points of
character which change or develop as childhood passes.
into youth. Violence, sullenness, obstinacy, fretful-
ness, impertinence, disobedience, deceit, and the timidity
which leads to falsehood for fear of punishment, all
these are manifested early, and should be so restrained
by early discipline, that at the age we are considering
here, the ripening of reason and self-control should
alone be needed to confirm the work effected by
parental authority and management. The germs of
all that is valuable in character should be already
trained, ready to expand and strengthen under the
influence of intellectual cultivation; but if the task
of childhood and that of youth must both begin
together, progress will unavoidably be slow and the
end uncertain.
Unfortunately this is too often the case. Children with
prematurely forced intellects are babies in conduct, and
then the labour of education is heavy indeed. Tempers
requiring the utmost care may by that time have been
soured by injudicious management; the mother is re-
duced to that most humiliating confession, that her
children are quite beyond her control,' and gladly
gives up to a stranger the task appointed to her by
Heaven.
One great mistake that educators fall into-and it is
partly founded on peculiar religious views is that a
child's nature can be changed; that the heart being evil
and corrupt, all its natural tendencies must be thwarted
and repressed. Now, those who have considered the
MODE OF COMBATING FAULTS.
93
subject more philosophically agree that most natural
qualities have a good as well as an evil side, and that
the evil is to be subdued only by cultivating some.
quality of an opposite character, and by bringing all
those influences to bear which shall draw out the good.
The natural tendency will remain the same, but a strong
opposing principle rises habitually against it, and all
the force of association tells on the side of good instead
of evil.
For instance, the punishment which follows each
outbreak of violent temper in a child, though in some
measure necessary to enforce self-control, does little or
nothing towards counteracting the inward disposition
which leads to violence, while it may, if frequent, break
down the fine spirit which often accompanies such
tempers. But if every endeavour were turned to culti-
vating kindness and love towards all living creatures,
and a humble view of the child's own merits and claims
upon others, the very sources of angry emotions would
be gradually dried up, while the wamth and eagerness
which generally form part of the same disposition
remain unimpaired. In like manner with the timid,
the endeavour should be to encourage boldness and to
rouse decision; to accustom them to responsibility, the
latter being made a mark of honour; to excite sympathy
for the great deeds of fearless and heroic natures.
Fear, therefore, should never be appealed to, though at
the moment, fear is the readiest instrument to accom-
plish a particular purpose. With the sullen we should,
upon the same principles, avoid, as far as possible, any
punishment which can be borne with dogged obstinacy,
while striving to cultivate a habit of frankness and
cheerfulness, making them feel the pleasure of finding
sympathy in all the small troubles and difficulties they
94
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
openly avow; the desire for sympathy so created will
gradually drive out the sullenness.
In this system of management we call to our aid the
power of association, which, in education, may be called
almost creative. By watching, training, and discipline,
the mother forms habits of action; but the active prac-
tical principle, on which Dr. Butler so well shows.
that the permanence of habit and its influence on the
mind depend, is owing to the motives that are brought
into operation. Now education creates motives by the
power of association in moulding tastes and desires.
By persevering discipline, for instance, we can give
habits of industry, of regularity, of obedience; but we
can ensure the duration of these habits after the dis-
cipline is removed only by forming in the mind those
associations which will excite the desire to work and to
be useful, and to strive after worthy objects. Habit
influences action, association influences thoughts and
wishes; both are indispensable instruments, but the
power the parent possesses of moulding the mind
through association is the highest power one human
being can exercise over another. It may be compared
to the mighty efforts of physical science in compelling
the great laws of the universe to be the ministers of
man in accomplishing what must otherwise remain for
ever beyond all human achievement.
No set rules can be given for a task like this;
it belongs mostly to the mother, and must be wrought
by example, by influence, by patient instilling, little by
little, by everything she does, and every word she
utters of praise or of blame, that tends to associate the
* See Theory of Habit: Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed.
Part iii. chap. 5.
POWER OF ASSOCIATION.
95
notions of pleasure or of pain with this or that action,
habit, or state of mind. Natural peculiarities may
indeed sometimes baffle her efforts altogether, or appear
to do so for a time, but judicious management, patiently
persevered in, will generally triumph. She must be
careful, however, not to work upon one mould for all
children, or to cherish the vain notion of producing
one and the same result with different materials; the
same ultimate object must, of course, be kept in view,
but the general direction given will take its peculiar
shape from the peculiarities of the individual. Vulgar
methods of education force certain modes of conduct
and certain habits of study during the period of youthful
subjection, and seldom indeed does the pupil receive
any notion of the real purpose of any part of this
tedious discipline: but the aim of the mother who
knows the value of association is to mould the inner
life in accordance with the habits she imposes for a
time; to kindle the love of goodness, the desire for
knowledge, the pleasure in active benevolence which
shall be lasting guides when her authority is with-
drawn.
and another,
Let those who doubt the power that education
derives from association consider for a moment what
it is which, apart from constitutional peculiarities,
makes the great difference between one man and
another; or, to take a wider, and at the same time a
simpler view, between one class of men
when even original peculiarities become unimportant,
since taking a thousand men in one class and a
thousand in another, there will probably be found
among them an average number of the various types
of original character. What, then, makes the difference?
What marks the distinction between the savage and
96
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the civilized man-between the gentleman and the
boor? What but the different circumstances and
influences which have been around them from child-
hood, and which have combined to associate the ideas
of pleasure, of greatness, of virtue in the mind of the
one with what perhaps in the other is associated with
vice, or pain, or degradation? The thousand shades
between these extremes make the various shades of
tastes and desires, likes and dislikes, by which motives
and character are formed. Miss Martineau, in her
Household Education, makes some true remarks on the
difference that the tone of a man's tastes and pleasures.
makes on character. Of all the solemn considerations,'
she says, 'involved in the great work of education,
none is so awful as this-the right exercise and train-
ing of the sense of pleasure and pain. The man who
feels most pleasure in putting brandy into his stomach,
or in any other way gratifying his nerves of sensation,
is a mere beast. One whose chief pleasure is the
exercise of his limbs, and who lives without any
exercise of the mind, is a more harmless sort of
animal, like the lamb in the field, or the swallow.
skimming over meadow or pool. He whose delight
is to represent nature by painting, or to build edifices
by some beautiful idea, or to echo feelings in music,
is of an immeasurably higher order. Higher still is
he who is charmed by thought, whose understanding
gives him more satisfaction than any power he has.
Higher still is he who is never so happy as when he
is making others happy-when he is relieving pain, or
giving pleasure to two or three or more people about
him. Higher yet is he whose chief joy it is to labour
at great and eternal thought, in which lies bound up
the happiness of a whole nation, and perhaps a whole
NEGLECT OF THIS POWER.
97
world at a future time, when he will be mouldering
in his grave.'*
When we consider how rarely ordinary systems of
education even attempt to sway these notions-how
recklessly they create associations of pleasure with
idleness, luxury, and selfish indulgence-how they
neglect to form any such associations with mental
occupation, with benevolence or the power of useful-
ness, we may see how far we are yet from having used
the instruments which nature put into our hands.
In childhood it is idle to address the understanding,
when everything invites to mould the feelings. Even
later, when reason is acquiring strength, and the mind
is capable of conviction, we find convictions are barren
of action unless we can influence the motives which
lead instinctively to action. This, as I said above,
the mother is able to do with her children by the
power of association. With these two mighty in-
struments—association and habit-education, if com-
menced early enough and perseveringly continued, has
a power we can scarcely limit. But if a mere system
of isolated checks and reproofs is acted on in childhood,
it becomes very difficult to adopt a better one at a
later period. It is while the child is still the passive
subject of unquestioned authority that he can be
brought fully and unconsciously under the influence of
such habits and associations as we wish to form.
When the will has acquired strength, when character
has become in some degree marked, when other in-
fluences have had time to tell, and when growing
reason is announcing the period for self-government to
have superseded that of blind obedience, then it requires
* Household Education, p. 24.
H
98
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the co-operation of the young creature herself in the work
of moulding her future tastes, desires, and action, and
that co-operation is, in such cases, most likely to fail.
Mighty, then, as these instruments of education are,
it requires knowledge of human nature, close observa-
tion, great patience, and steady foresight to make a
right use of them. Nothing is so easy as to reprove
or punish faults at the time they are committed; but
much thought and method are necessary to train the
principles of better action. Just as it is easy to teach
a lesson, but laborious to make every effort of to-day
tend towards a purpose requiring perhaps years to bring
it to perfection. Mere instruction, in short, mental or
moral, looks to the present, works by means of day
by day expedients; education looks to the future, and
works with a view to the whole course of life.
Section 2.-Perfect sincerity and love of truth stand
first among the points to be aimed at in moral training.
With little children this subject presents some difficul-
ties; yet if we are not anxious to do too much we shall
find that to a certain extent they can easily be made to
understand the difference between truth and falsehood
in any simple matter of fact, and that what cannot be
explained is in part placed by intuitive feeling beyond
the necessity of explanation. For the child blushes in
telling a falsehood, and resents any attempt made to
deceive him; thus nature helps us in one of the most
momentous tasks of education. With this we ought to
be satisfied till the understanding is better developed ;
too great rigidity sometimes intimidates a nervous
child, and sometimes in one who loves opposition fosters.
the very evil it purposes to repress.
FALSEHOOD.
99
Imaginative children will lie for the pleasure of
creating the fiction, but when seriously questioned they
soon feel the moment when it would be wrong to per-
sist in what they at first said for fun. It is unwise to
take any further notice of such a fault, or to attempt
to alarm the conscience before the ground for the dis-
pleasure can be understood. If gently discouraged,
these freaks of fancy will soon be confined within
legitimate bounds. Timid children lie from fear of
punishment, and require very careful treatment: and
again, conceited or over-sensitive children will occa-
sionally tell a falsehood to avoid being known to have
done a wrong or even a foolish thing, when they would
not have shrunk from punishment could they have.
escaped the censure of those whose approbation they
value. In such natures there is evidently much to
work upon, and when we have succeeded in attaching a
stronger sense of shame to untruth than to any other
fault a child can commit, the evil will soon disappear.
It is well with children whose truth cannot be
trusted to avoid as far as possible asking any questions
that can give occasion for falsehood. It is of import-
ance to avoid the recurrence of the fault; and thus
the habit is broken, and conscience, which would have
grown hardened by repeated failings, becomes more
sensitive during the pause from conflict between the
natural tendency and the new sense of duty. When
the child is old enough to feel the tacit reproof, it is
sometimes a useful lesson to ask any necessary questions
pointedly of another person, and to take the occasion to
explain to her that we dread asking her what we wanted
to know while she is still so childishly ignorant of right
and wrong as to fall into the grievous fault of untruth—
a fault which, besides its moral guilt, is thus seen to
UorM
H 2
100
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
make her useless. The advantage of treating it as a
childish fault is twofold: first, the pride of the young
creature being roused may prove a powerful auxiliary
against her inclination to falsehood; and secondly, the
conscience will not be dangerously lulled by the in-
dulgence shown, which is known to be in consideration
of the age of the offender.
If a child has been allowed to grow up to twelve
years old in carelessness about truth, the task of cor-
rection becomes a very heavy one. It is true that at
that age the understanding may be appealed to, and all
the reasons that make falseness in any form both odious
and disgraceful may be explained, appealing to any
spark of honour or high feeling that may exist in the
child's mind; but on the other hand, the bad habit has
acquired strength, the easiest mode of escaping from a
difficulty has been resorted to till it is hard to rouse
courage to prefer a bolder course, while conscience has
become feeble from neglect. Still we must persevere;
nothing must be left untried which may help to lay
that foundation of moral integrity, wanting which, the
whole character is tainted with unsoundness.
Nothing perhaps will affect the young creature so
deeply as finding that loss of confidence and esteem is
the natural penalty of untruth which you could not spare
her if you would. Words of repentance and promises
of amendment cannot restore things where they were.
Deceit creates distrust, and the latter will not pass away
till some steadiness in self-conquest shall have given
an earnest of the sincerity of the promises. It would
be mere weakness in such a case to use any mitigated
terms in expressing the contempt you would feel for any
grown-up person who could be guilty of such a fault,
and that so painful a feeling is only softened towards
Maou
EXAGGERATED LANGUAGE.
101
the young offender in compassion for her weakness and
ignorance. It is only because you see that she is still
a mere child in sense and feeling that you can show
any indulgence for a vice which otherwise would forfeit
your esteem for ever. The more gentle your habitual
language and manner the more will the child feel the
sternness of this moral indignation, and the more will
she be pained by the grief you may show in having
been so disappointed in one you loved and trusted.
The lesson will be painfully severe, and the effect upon
the mind of the young creature must be anxiously
watched; some could not endure it long. I believe it
would be lost upon none but the utterly cold and
feeble. It must not be forgotten that the more severe
the reprobation the parent or teacher is forced to ex-
press, the more careful should she be to let it be felt
that in the youth of the delinquent she sees earnest
hope of amendment. The young must never for a
moment feel that they are despaired of, for if they
despair of themselves, farewell at once to energy and
hope of improvement.
But checking downright falsehood is a very small
part of the training required to form a truly upright
character. There are many subtle shades of untruth
and of insincere dealing which require to be watched and
subdued. Every shadow that mars that lucid candour
which is so well named single-minded should be felt to
be so much leaning towards evil.
There are many faults which are too commonly
tolerated which have more or less of this character, or
induce habits which would easily lead to indifference
about strict veracity. The trick of exaggerated language
is one of these, that of making excuses when questioned
or reproved is another, and another again is the habit
1
102
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
of inaccuracy in repeating what has been said or heard,
intending probably to give, if not the very words, at
least a complete equivalent, but neglecting to consider
whether that supposed equivalent does not imply some
admission of fact or feeling-some inference or opinion
which the actual words said, or the actual thing done,
did not imply-by which means a false impression is
given under colour of a true statement. This false-
hood by inference is so common as to deserve very
serious attention at the age when opinions are forming,
and when it becomes most essential in order to form
our own that we should judge those of others in a fair
and candid spirit; but this subject is beyond the com-
prehension of children, all we can do with them is
to form the habit of implicit accuracy.
If a statement
be made professedly as a repetition of another person's
statement, require the precise words, or a confession of
where the recollection of them is not clear, and treat
the matter as of little value when the memory is con-
fused. So with narrative, strict adherence to facts
should be required, no colouring epithets allowed to
pass without showing the child how they tend to alter
the view of the case, to give her impression, instead of
simply furnishing the person she is addressing the means
of forming an opinion.
Few things will help to establish in the young mind.
a more rooted conviction of our supreme value for truth
than seeing that on all occasions, great and small, these
apparently trifling things are borne in mind by our-
selves, and that any, even the slightest symptom of
indifference to exact truth in others, tends to lessen our
esteem and to destroy our confidence, both in the
judgment and feeling of those who are thus careless in
forming opinions and inaccurate in making statements.
INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE.
103
Want of attention to these points allows the young to
run on to the very verge of grave error, while the line
between the carelessness and exaggeration which are
tolerated, and the falsehood which is looked upon as
criminal, is easily confounded.
Perhaps in no other habit of the mind does the
influence and example of those around them affect the
young so powerfully as in this complete integrity of
word and action. Many cases have been seen in which
parents who could not have consciously trained a single
good habit in their children, have unconsciously trained
this first of all virtues by the force of their own ex-
ample of unswerving uprightness and singleness of
motive. They have loved truth, and they have spread
so pure a moral atmosphere round their children that
it would seem as if no falseness could live there, and
the young creatures grow up true and honest, while
scarcely hearing a precept in favour of truth, or a
denunciation of falsehood.
Some persons who assiduously cultivate sincerity
seem to consider that bad manners are the outward
badge of this virtue. The mistake is no less foolish
than mischievous. The only occasions on which sincerity
and good breeding can come into collision are when the
necessary expression of opinion by one person wounds
the feelings of another. It is evident that such
occasions should be avoided if possible, since it is a
plain rule of Christian morals never to wound the feel-
ings of others unless forced to do so at the call of a
higher duty. If an opinion must be given, or if we
stand in a position in which our silence will seem to
give sanction to what we morally disapprove, let the
opinion, though gently given, be open and uncom-
promising. If we are bound to speak what others will
104
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
receive as the truth, or at any rate as our honest con-
viction or view of the truth, the duty is clear, and at
any cost must be accomplished. But that duty is
comparatively a rare one, especially for the young.
We do not so often stand as judges upon or witnesses
against each other as the apostles of this virtuous ill-
breeding would have us suppose. Let us be kind and
gentle, and thinking no evil, severe in our scrutiny of
our own motives, and not curious to seek into the
motives of others, unless they may serve to extenuate
their faults, and we shall find that we are but seldom
placed in the position of either sacrificing truth or of
offending against good feeling and good manners.
Adherence to these same rules of not judging others
will help us in those difficult occasions when children
question us about objectionable conduct in older
persons, conduct which they see is in opposition with
the principles they have themselves been taught, while
yet their parent or others, from whom they hold that
teaching, seem to remain on a footing of kindness or
intimacy with the offenders. In accordance with the
above rules, the young may easily be made to under-
stand that there is no want of sincerity in this; because
we do not venture to judge the motives and feelings of
others. If we see what is wrong in action, it pains us,
but we regulate our dealings with the individuals
according to the claims they may have on other grounds
upon our affection, kindness, gratitude, or compassion,
or mere outward respect; and we do not feel it to be
at all a part of sincerity to express an opinion of their
faults, or to show our sense of them by abstaining from
any office of kindness or good breeding. But if the
child is in danger of being really puzzled or misled by
the apparent esteem of its parents for an unprincipled
BLAMING OTHERS.
105
It
person, some further explanation may be necessary.
is better in such a case to be quite open upon the sub-
ject; admit the faults which the erring person does not
care to conceal, or which have come to the knowledge
of the child, but take that occasion to impress on the
young mind that weak and faulty as human nature is,
each one of us is bound to be indulgent to others.
while severe to himself; that we must expect to find
evil mixed with almost all that is good, and therefore
must welcome all the good without ever making the
conduct of others the standard of our own. The know-
ledge of our own motives, of the degree of weakness or
of strength with which we have resisted temptation or
withstood better influences, warrants the utmost severity
towards ourselves, while the absence of this very know-
ledge makes judgment of others rash and unjustifiable.
When, therefore, we blame their conduct, we must
allow for the many things which perhaps make them
objects rather for our pity and sympathy than for our
censure. This mode of reasoning is perfectly intelligible
to children, and it will save them at once from confusion
on moral points, from mistaken sincerity, and from
uncharitable temper.
The case when this difficulty is truly distressing is
where the faulty person is one of the parents; when
a father or mother is unable to conceal that the prin-
ciples he or she has most carefully inculcated upon the
children are disregarded by the other parent, whose
authority remains not the less sacred, and whose claims
to respect it is so important not to forget. It is hard
to say to which of the parents this position is most
trying. A father must feel that the mother's influence
is too powerful to allow almost of any hope that the
effects of her example may be counteracted; while the
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
mother, who dreads for her children their father's laxity
of principle, is obliged to submit to his authority, and
often to see her most anxiously arranged system of
education interfered with or set aside at the bidding of
one who has never given an hour's thought to the sub-
ject which engrosses her whole mind.
Nothing can entirely avert the evil of such a state
of things, or prevent its being the source of great per-
plexity and suffering; but the course I have indicated
above will, I believe, be the safest-silence, so long as
silence is possible, and then perfect openness on points
which can no longer be veiled from the children's
observation, with the expression of earnest grief rather
than of blame, and of every feeling that can mitigate
censure against the individual. It will be needful to
dwell particularly upon the facts that respect for the
parental office, and gratitude for care and affection,
cannot be altered by perceiving errors in the parents'
principles or conduct; for the shock to the young
mind of discovering such error is so great, that there
is fear of a sudden revulsion of feeling. Ignorance of
the world makes the young very rigid moralists, and
when their belief that all they love is pure and excel-
lent is first shaken, the revelation is torture to a
sensitive mind, and the evil effects may last for years-
perhaps taint the feelings through life, unless carefully
watched and judiciously treated.
There are many points of a comparatively trifling
nature in which it becomes impossible to disguise from
children that what the one parent thinks right is dis-
regarded by the other, and that they disagree about
their children's management and education. It
requires great judgment to deal with such cases with-
out sacrificing truth, or betraying the feelings which
DISCUSSIONS BEFORE CHILDREN.
107
disagreement of this nature, on a subject we have
much at heart, can hardly fail to produce. One most
important point for both parents to remember is, that
discussions of this kind between them should never go
on before the children; if they retain any remnant of
self-command, they will refrain from exhibiting to them
the unseemly spectacle of discord. The one who holds.
the highest principles will certainly be anxious to avoid
this evil, if only for fear lest children should hear from
lips habitually revered some unguarded expressions of
ridicule for rules or precepts they have been taught to
respect.
The mother, being forced to submit to the authority
of her husband, will take care to avoid the occasions
on which he might be provoked to express his will
authoritatively. She would rather be silent when the
children are present, or seem not to hear, or leave the
room that she may not be forced to hear, than allow
a discussion to arise before them, and to let them
find themselves in the new position of judges between
conflicting opinions, in which the very questions most
interesting to them, their pleasures, their studies, the
treatment due to them for good or bad conduct are at
stake. A mother will, as I said, make many sacrifices
to prevent the disagreement being discovered. But
when concealment is impossible, then perfect frankness
about the opinions, and avoidance, as far as possible of
blame of the individual, will again be her only safe
course. She may fairly say to her children, Your
father thinks differently from me on such or such
points; I believe I am right, for I have carefully con-
sidered the subject, while he has not had the same
means or leisure that I have had to study it. When you
are older, you may reflect upon it yourselves, and decide,
C
108
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
according to the best of your judgment, which of us is
right; in the meantime, I have the charge of your
education, and must act upon my own views, unless
your father were positively to forbid it, when it would
be my duty to submit to him in whatever does not
involve the sacrifice of real principle.'
Sentiments of this kind, simply and frankly expressed,
will often save the mother the grief of seeing all her
labour made barren by miserable dissensions and divided
authority. There is this consolation also, that the
highest-toned character will in the long run exert and
retain the strongest influence. The highest standard
of right that has been held up to the young mind is
that to which, when not under the immediate impulse
of passion, it will turn instinctively, as if with some
oft-suppressed yearning after the heaven of truth and
purity.
To be true at all times requires no small degree of
courage, and to the enervating education of women,
which tends so much to destroy the very spring of that
quality in the mind, must mainly be attributed any
peculiar insincerity that our sex has been accused of.
Women are not left merely to feel the timidity almost
inseparable from weakness and a dependent position,
but they are trained up to believe it wrong to think
for themselves. To fear appearances, to fear opinion-
even that of the foolish and vain, whom they cannot
respect to fear showing their feelings or characters,
in short to seem to be fashioned on the ideal of female
excellence which happens to be in vogue at the time,
however little their real being conforms to it. There
are points on which this deference to opinions, value-
less in themselves, is indispensable for women; but how
difficult it is to reconcile such a theory of life with
MANŒUVRING.
109
that fearless uprightness which God and man require
of every human creature! Yet a woman is expected
to reconcile them, and when she fails men easily forget.
all the influences which have been ceaselessly at work
to transform her timidity into cowardice, and her
natural position of dependence into one of moral
slavery.
Other considerations also make it indispensable to
educate girls to a more fearless love of truth. The
position of women is one in which so much is
generally to be gained by a little artifice or petty
management, while it is often so vain to insist openly
on her clearest right, that the temptation is fearful to
any one whose own sense of honour and integrity is
not such as to revolt from the least approach to under-
hand dealing. The danger is the greater, because the
evil may begin in such slight shades that they blend
and melt away into the engaging prettinesses of
feminine manner-those coaxing, winning ways, which
add a real charm even to lofty character. The line
between manœuvring and tact, without which the best
fail in home influence, is a delicate one to draw, and it
must be left to the innate feeling of the upright mind
to keep distinct what precepts fail to distinguish.
Men's faults and their virtues alike combine to throw
them helplessly into the hands of any woman who is
not scrupulous in using her power; and the less a
woman really loves, the more complete is her empire,
if she choose to exert it; while the alternative is too
often subjection to a capricious and arbitrary will. If
mothers, therefore, shrink themselves from power pur-
chased at the cost of singleness of mind, they should
surely spare no efforts to train in their daughters, not
sincerity alone, but moral courage, till they feel that
YA
110
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
manoeuvring in all its shades is become a moral im-
possibility to them, and that they would sacrifice any-
thing sooner than their own self-respect in stooping to
artifice. Only by training more vigorous minds and
characters can we hope to get rid of the faults which
an opposite system has encouraged.
The habit of acting upon a sense of duty is closely
connected with integrity, and the idea of duty itself is
one of the earliest that a child can be made to under-
stand. A little creature, scarcely able to speak, knows
that it is doing wrong in disobeying an order, and that
sense of wrong-doing, the earliest indication of conscience,
is the foundation of the notion of duty. Next, the child
can be made to understand that its parents, in their con-
duct towards it, are acting under a sense of duty to God,
to whom they are answerable for the right guidance of
their children. There is a simple grandeur in this con-
ception which will sometimes powerfully affect the child's
mind, and give a new character to its obedience. It is
with a view to cultivating the sense of duty more than
with regard to any special point of conduct, that obedience
is the one great virtue of childhood. By insisting on
it, by claiming blind uncompromising obedience, we are
teaching the child to submit its own will to the only
duty it really understands; and far therefore from
encouraging, as some persons suppose, a weak habit,
unfit for a creature who is hereafter to be governed by
reason, we are laying the foundation of that habit of
obedience to the call of duty which is the very source
of moral strength and lofty action through life.
When the understanding begins to ripen, and the
reason is able to act, the season for blind obedience is
over. Orders given then should be explained; the
motives of them unfolded. The young creature should
SELF-CONTROL.
111
be led to examine principles, and lay down rules of
conduct, and to feel that whatever reason and con-
science approve, duty commands. Then the old habit
of obedience will come in to aid in this difficult
task of self-regulation. The duty of the man to obey
his conscience stands on precisely the same grounds as
the duty of the child to obey its parents; it is the
highest rule of right which the reason of each is able to
perceive.
A child has no steady will, though the impulse of the
moment creates wilfulness; and those who are afraid of
breaking down strength of character by exacting
implicit obedience, forget that there is no strength
shown in obeying impulse. The mind is not active,
but passive under such a course. A man's strength is
in his power of self-control; his very power over others
is often in proportion to his command over himself.
When, therefore, we oblige a child to control itself in
foregoing its own wishes, in resisting impulse, in
repressing anger or insolence, we are doing our best to
endow it with that power which essentially makes man
a moral being, which enables him to walk with a
determined purpose through the difficulties and tempta-
tions of life, neither passion's slave nor the puppet of
circumstance, but his own master; resolute and self-
possessed. When this power is wanting, even the
clearest convictions of what is right, aud the most
religious feeling about duty, will fail to insure a steady
course of action. Then it is that 'the flesh' remains
so weak, while 'the spirit is willing.'
We all know these things; there is nothing new in
these beaten paths of morals; but why is it then that
education so seldom steadily aims at training the power
of self-control. The rule of obedience is left too lax
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
with young children; it is maintained too strictly at a
later period; the habit of self-command is equally
neglected in both cases.
In childhood that habit, as
we have said, is best cultivated by acting at the bidding
of another; but in youth, by acting upon convictions
and a self-determined course. The blind obedience of
the young child was an instrument, not an object in
itself; the aim of moral discipline is to give the power
of self-guidance, and it has lamentably failed if it has
only made a creature fit to be guided. Authority,
therefore, over the child should always be exercised
with the view of fitting the youth to be independent of
authority.
All the strong and resolute points of character are
for this reason full of promise, though a weaker nature
may give less trouble in early life to parents or teachers.
Obstinacy, which joined as it sometimes is to feeble-
ness, is one of the most hopeless faults to deal with, is
also occasionally the indication of a resolute temper,
and deserves to be carefully and cautiously treated.
The teacher should sedulously avoid entering into a
contest with an obstinate child, or insisting upon any
thing which by dint of resolution the child can succeed
in refusing to do. There should be nothing conditional
either in a task imposed or in a punishment inflicted.
It will not do with such tempers to threaten for in-
stance confinement till a certain thing is done, for the
obstinate child is reckless of many things which the
teacher cannot disregard, as health, the necessity of ex-
ercise, &c. If the fit of obstinacy has arisen at lesson time
it is better to close the books, saying that in such an
unreasonable mood a child is not worthy to take up the
time for which we have so much demand. If punish-
ment is necessary, let it be definite, and such as cannot
CONSISTENCY IN PARENTS.
113
be resisted, demanding no concessions and thereby
giving no occasion for contest.
Obstinacy may also sometimes be attacked through
the pride which usually accompanies it.
We may
take an opportunity of expressing our respect for true
resolution when it is guided by reason, and shown in a
consistent course of action, and even own that we hope
the obstinacy of the child may indicate some degree of
strength, while the pettiness and folly of its childish
manifestations excite our pity; if we can persuade
the determined spirit that we are seeking to lead it
in a right direction, not to break it down, we shall have
gained something. It will more readily respect what
we show respect for, and be ashamed of that which
excites our contemptuous pity. Thus we may over-
come the obstinacy while we husband the strength of
character which will assuredly be all needed to walk
steadily in the path of duty.
The sacredness of duty like that of truth, is not
taught in a few set harangues or on a few great
occasions. Here again example is the most powerful
auxiliary, and its influence is strengthened by all the
force of the associations of love and reverence that cling
round a parent's life. Long before children can
understand the principles on which we act they can
discern whether our conduct is consistent or not, and
feel the difference between the uncertain guidance of
those who have no fixed principle of action, and the calm
unswerving rule of those who act under a sense of duty.
The former provokes rebellion, and frequently keeps the
children in a state of unhealthy excitement and irrita-
tion; the latter influences them as men are influenced
by perceiving some great law of nature, they neither
cavil nor question, but submit to its regular operation.
I
114
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Unfortunately in education many conscientious
parents are guilty of a painful degree of inconsistency.
They act indeed upon a sense of duty, but want of
knowledge makes their conscience a blind guide. They
will not err with regard to morals, but they are ignorant
of the means of enforcing the principles, and cultivating
the habits they most value. Thus while their motives
are fixed, their conduct is unsteady, and children can-
not be expected to understand the reason of this un-
fortunate contradiction. This is one striking example
of the inefficiency of moral goodness without intellectual
cultivation, and also of the evils resulting from educa-
tion being trusted to the ignorant. Yet there is no
alternative till women receive mental training of a higher
order.
Love of justice is another characteristic of a truly
upright mind; indeed it is the very essence of upright-
ness, love of truth manifested practically in our judg-
ments and our dealings with others. Women have
been accused of being deficient in this quality, and I
have said elsewhere* what may account for this deficiency
as far as it really exists, and excuse it, as far as excuse
is possible for such a fault. There is no need to recur
here to that part of the subject, except to say that it
will be almost impossible to cultivate love of justice in
children, unless they feel that it regulates all our deal-
ings with them. There is often great laxity on this
point. Sometimes severity, more often indulgence
preponderates, and under this uncertain rule a child.
does not know what to expect and gets no example to
guide his own practice. Of course it is not meant
that a child is always to receive the just measure of
* Thoughts on Self-Culture, p. 146. Second edition.
JUSTICE.
115
punishment for every fault, but he should always be
made to feel what in strict justice he has deserved, and
that any mitigation is owing either to compassion on
account of such or such circumstances, or because good
conduct in other respects has deserved a reward, &c.; in
short some reason should be assigned and explained,
which will leave on the child's mind neither a doubt
about the future, nor a belief that you yourself disregard
the justice according to which you profess to have
drawn up the rules he has transgressed.
But though it must be optional with the parent to
remit a deserved punishment, no consideration should be
allowed to deprive a child of deserved reward, whether
the latter come in the shape of something promised
before, or in that of approbation, which is the dearest
of all rewards to affectionate children.
It is when the child feels he deserves such encourage-
ment and does not receive it, or worse still when his
efforts to do right are met with impatient angry words
because, while doing his best he still falls short, that
the feeling of being treated with injustice swells in his
heart. I am not speaking of real unkindness but of
the petty acts of a wayward sway, when the heart may
be full of affection, but a hasty temper, or ignorance
or want of method makes parents neglect the labour of
close inquiry or observation, which is indispensable for
acting justly.
The sense of justice exists in the minds of children
long before they can understand what it means, and
working upon this natural foundation, it may be made
as abhorrent to them to commit an act of injustice as
to tell a falsehood. Gradually as the understanding
expands the grounds can be explained to them on which
certain claims are admitted as just, while others are re-
I 2
116
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
jected. The want of integrity that lurks in not allow-
ing in the case of others, what we should insist upon in
our own, can then be unfolded and illustrated. If
mothers had been more careful to do this with their
sons, we should not have waited till now, to see some
of the rights of women recognised by our legislature.
Had they so taught their daughters, there would have
been less submission to oppression, but fewer of those
hasty judgments in which excited feeling speaks where
reason should have spoken, and which expose women to
the accusation of being unjust.
Selfishness is generally at the root of the in-
justice of men, ignorance and impulsive feeling of
that of women; thus the former are mostly unjust in
action, the latter in judgment. They are not trained
to reason upon what touches their feelings, and we
must remember that in the narrow experience of
women it is mostly on points more or less personally
interesting, that their judgments are called for, and
this forms the habit of mind which influences them
throughout. This habit of not submitting feeling to
reason, joined to want of experience in sifting evidence,
blinds them to the fact that they either do not know
enough to come to a decision, or that they are uttering
a feeling, not a conviction of the understanding; and
stating perhaps with regard to the conduct of another,
their own prepossessions and inferences instead of the
simple facts of the case. This view of the character of
injustice in women points out the course of training
required to preserve the young mind from the error.
The intellectual capacity for being just, must be culti-
vated no less than the moral love of justice; and that
can be done only by strengthening the reasoning
power, to counterbalance the natural predominance of
LOVE OF TRUTH.
117
feeling; and by forming habits of accuracy and dis-
crimination in all matters of opinion. The necessity
of the invigorating influence of severer mental training
is thus felt at every step of female education.
In all that has been said here of the love of truth
and of the practical qualities that belong to it, it has
been considered in a moral point of view only. The
love of intellectual truth is distinct from this. They
blend only as we lift our minds to God, as the source of
all truth and all knowledge, as well as of all perfection
and goodness; that is, of all the soul pants to know,
as well as of all the heart desires to love. Love of
knowledge and love of truth in the intellectual sense
are one, and I have already said how important I con-
ceive it to be that the love of knowledge for its own
sake should be cultivated till it becomes the very spring
of intellectual life for women; giving energy to pursuit
when their outer life offers no mental stimulus. I
shall have occasion also to return to this part of the
subject, and will only remark here that the habitual
contemplation of great truths, the serene yet earnest
delight that the pursuit of knowledge affords, exercises
a calming influence over the mind which is most
favourable to the healthy moral condition. The strength
of feeling and of prejudice is subdued or kept under
control by the habitual exercise of reason, while the
mind is quickened in its perceptions of truth. Sup-
posing other things therefore to be equal, we may
consider that the love of intellectual truth tends greatly
to favour an upright and consistent course of life.
Section 3.-We come now to the consideration of
another class of qualities.
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
There are few serious vices that affect daily happi-
ness so much as faults of temper. What women suffer
from such faults in men, is so well known that the
only wonder is how they can still so often treat them
as light offences. In their own case they are saved at
least from the danger of forming so false an estimate,
for no one excuses ill-temper in women. It is too
inconvenient a fault where submission is required, so
that just as we expect perfect self-control from our
uneducated servants, overlooking the difficulty and the
struggle, so men, while holding women as their in-
feriors, expect from them a degree of moral strength
shown in self-conquest which they rarely dream of
exerting themselves. However in this particular
instance the spirit of exaction has done us too
good service to be quarrelled with; truly may we
welcome anything which has helped to exorcise the
familiar demon that turns home into a place of
torment, and places those who love each other best in
the position of persecutors and victims.
With young children, violence is the most common
form of ill-temper, and the finest natures, those that have
most strength and spirit morally and physically, are often
most prone to it. Fretfulness on the other hand is
more commonly a symptom of weakness either moral
or physical. We may generally presume that an
habitually discontented child is not in a condition of
complete health. When a child gets into a violent
passion it is not the raving, the insolence, or even the
blow given under the influence of that temporary mad-
ness that causes us any anxiety. The child is often as
sorry, and as much ashamed of itself, as we can desire
when the fit is over, especially if left to the workings
of its own feelings, without repentance being dictated
VIOLENT TEMPER.
119
to it, before the irritation has subsided. Some children
may be met sternly and punished at once unless they
make the desired effort to control their violence, and
this strong effort of self-conquest frequently repeated
though under the influence of immediate fear may
sometimes help to train a habit of self-control. But
such a course would be full of danger with a child of
delicate nervous organization, or with the high proud
spirit which contest drives to exasperation. With the
nervous child, punishment or even an angry remon-
strance, while the evil mood lasts, is only increasing the
agitation which is already, in its mere physical effects,
beyond control; while with the high-spirited the
expression of anger, or the threat of punishment, only
gives the occasion for the contest which the furious spirit
loves. It often wants a vent, and the more daring, the
more frantic the act it is driven to, the greater the relief
obtained. Then if not injudiciously meddled with, the
reaction begins; but the first words of the wise speeches
and moral exhortations that most teachers have ready
for such occasions, kindle again all the excitement and
irritation that was beginning to subside. Perfect cool-
ness is necessary in such cases, as few words as possible,
and no punishment till the child is in a fit state to
understand why it is inflicted and to feel its justice.
The time for exhortation comes afterwards. Then
the child should be made to understand that our real
deep concern is not for the outbreak which is like
some violent but transient fit of illness, but for the
state of mind which makes such an outbreak possible;
for the proud spirit which cannot brook opposition,
the ungentle unchristian feelings that make self so
prominent, so careless of inflicting pain; the quick
sense of injury and tendency to fancy it, with blindness
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
to faults which are constantly calling on the indulgence
of others, and ought therefore to keep the mind humble
and patient even should the injustice complained of be
real. The child must be taught how to watch for the
first symptoms of her besetting sin and to exert self-
control to repress it then, before it has grown to its
full strength: try to make her feel how lowering it is
to become the blind slave of feelings which we are
ashamed in our sane moments of ever having enter-
tained. Pride which before was our enemy may thus
be enlisted on our side. According to the age and
character of the child the teacher may either slightly
touch upon this subject, or enforce and illustrate it by
examples showing what miserable weakness there is in
thehuman creature who, striving by violence to domineer
over others, has no power to conquer self, is too feeble
to make real feelings and settled convictions triumph
over the temporary excitement of passion.
It is not very common to find violent temper in women;
though probably there is as much violence among
children of the one sex as of the other. The whole
tendency of female education is to repress all manifes-
tations of it; and as one of the first things a girl can
be made to understand is that violence of manner or of
language is utterly unwomanly, she learns to be
ashamed of what is held to be unworthy of her sex,
just as a boy of no very high feeling is ashamed of
betraying fear. But women have to be on their guard
against other forms of ill-temper, really worse than
violence, such as sullenness, peevishness, &c. These
may even be fostered by the very means taken to re-
press the violent manifestations, when imperfect treat-
ment has attacked symptoms only, leaving the root of
the disease untouched.
J
PEEVISH AND SULLEN TEMPERS.
121
Violence may remain unchecked from mismanage-
ment, but it cannot escape notice, while other forms of
ill-temper may by the unobservant pass wholly unre-
garded. These are the forms which interfere most with
habitual cheerfulness, and require to be corrected on
that account no less than for the unamiable qualities
they foster. In general all forms of sullen temper, in
which I include the peevish and discontented, are worse
than the violent; more ungenerous, more exacting and
meaner in motive and feeling. Violence is much more
likely to be controlled by reason, since a sudden
impulse may by a strong effort of self-command be
restrained. Accordingly while almost all high-spirited
children are occasionally violent in temper, we generally
find this fault corrected, in women, at least, at a later
period; but sullenness seems to infect the whole mind,
and from its nature is so much longer in operation that
the difficulty of overcoming it is proportionably greater.
The manifestations of it likewise being less openly
offensive than those of violence, it is not struggled
against so seriously, and even if partially corrected,
often settles into a discontented peevish tone of mind,
full of sensitiveness and irritability. It is sad to think
how many homes these faults have poisoned!
Trials and wrongs of a serious nature are borne with
courage or resignation by those who cannot command
themselves to meet trifling accidents or disappoint-
ments with cheerfulness. Many a woman has endured
from her husband far more than any human being can
be required to endure from another-she has forgiven
him neglect, violence of temper, disregard of her in-
terests and feelings, contempt for her understanding
and for her just claims to have a voice in family matters.
that are of equal concern to them both-she has shown
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the enduring spirit of a martyr where resistance to
oppression would have been just, and often beneficial,
and yet with all this abnegation of self, she meets him
daily in little things with a fretful irritable tone which
robs the most self-denying act of its charm, and brings
back over every happier moment the cloud of past
suffering and wrong.
We must remember with girls that their position
and mode of life while they check violence tend to
foster the more concentrated forms of ungentle feeling;
there is no complete remedy but striving from early
childhood to cultivate a frank cheerful temper as well
as kindliness of disposition. Children should never
be suffered to go over a quarrel twice. Once settled,
let neither word nor tone of voice be allowed to betray
that it is still fresh in the memory. It would be well
if in after-life women could remember this rule of
never harping upon the past.' If wrongs have been
too deep to be easily passed over let us pray in silence.
till we have strength to forgive, but once forgiven
nothing should betray that they are still remembered,
the poison of their sting should never be left to taint
the heart. A frank and cordial manner, a tone in
which no smothered bitterness still echoes must be the
condition of real peace; and if a woman cannot so far
command herself when she has conceded the essential
points, the weakness is sure to bring fresh suffering on
her own head.
I have spoken here of cases in which there are real
trials to be borue, the natural effects of which on an
undisciplined mind will show themselves in peevishness
or irritability, but there are too many cases in which
habitual fretfulness has no such excuse. In the first
instance perhaps it may have arisen from suffering health,
WATCHFULNESS REQUIRED.
123
or from injudicious treatment in childhood; but long
indulgence has made it the ordinary expression of every
trivial annoyance till it wears out the kindest patience
and threatens to blunt the truest affection. It is by
thus looking forward to their future effects that we
learn the importance of faults that in childhood attract
less attention than others which are in truth more
easy to correct. The duty as regards physical and
spiritual health, of preserving an equable cheerful frame
of mind is the point that is lost sight of. We check a
child's temper or impertinence, but we do not suffi-
ciently watch the signs of inward emotion, which the
timid or the reserved, or the cold and proud will not
express, but which influence character all the more
sometimes from this silent indulgence. In short in
this as in so many other things we deal with symptoms
instead of causes, we do not search out the evil and
strive to set up a counteracting influence. If a child
is fretful the great object is to remove the causes
of discontent, and cultivate the taste for cheerful things.
If she be sullen or reserved, try to make her feel the
pleasure of sympathy, show that you trust to hers, and
that it gives you comfort; be frank and warm in the
expression of your own feelings, tender in manner, so as
if possible to rouse the force of association in favour of
qualities the very opposite to those which belong to her
natural disposition.
One great enemy to a cheerful disposition is the
habit of murmuring, of continuing to complain after
the complaint has been proved to be unreasonable or
useless. Where difficulties are to be surmounted,
wailing over them is only wasting the time and energy
which should be spent in the struggle. Where they
are unavoidable and insuperable, complaining destroys
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the alacrity or the calmness which a reasonable person
should show in bearing what no efforts can avert. Just
as a quarrel should never be recurred to a second time,
so children should never be allowed a second grumble.
Good-humour, whether in obeying an order, in obliging
a companion, or in enduring a privation, is most essen-
tial, and the habit will be greatly promoted by never
tolerating a second remonstrance, or any repetition of
expressions of annoyance or reluctance. A point once
yielded must be yielded without reserve; a thing once
decided upon must be done promptly, and, if a service
to another person, graciously as well as readily.
The wretched habit of scolding and lecturing which
is SO common among those who have the care of
children is of the worst possible example. Let a
reproof be more or less sharp as occasion may require,
but always short; many a monitor has destroyed his
own work by over-talking. The child felt the justice.
of the first reprimand, and would have submitted in
silence, but it is repeated and repetition is irritating,
even when it does not-as almost always happens-lead
to some exaggeration. The least evil resulting then is
that the spirit of rebellion is roused again, while if the
expressions of reproof have been exaggerated, respect
lessens as the sense of injustice is kindled in the child's
mind.
The least that a teacher can do is to set an ex-
ample of the conduct she enforces on her pupils; never
therefore let her return over the past, never cast
up again faults confessed or atoned for and forgiven.
There are occasions indeed when the past must be
referred to, when the repetition of a fault is what gives
it a serious character; or when what would be quite
unimportant once threatens by frequent occurrence to
GOOD-HUMOUR.
125
form an evil habit.
But these things should be gone
over calmly and gravely when the child is in a state to
be convinced of the error or the danger her past con-
duct points to. This is very different from the out-
pouring about past offences on the occasion of some
fresh irritation which betrays an accumulation of wrath,
so that the child suddenly finds that she is reproved
not for one fault alone, which she knows to be deserving
of reproof, but for a score of delinquencies she had
thought passed over or forgotten. Nothing tends more
than this with sensitive or timid children to destroy that
confiding frankness which it is so essential to maintain.
They feel that they are perhaps watched with secret
displeasure even when all seems right. When the
teacher forgives it should be a frank and entire forgive-
ness; except in grave cases and for the single fault of
untruthfulness a child should never feel an instant
under suspicion. In the same manner with regard to
granting indulgences, do it cheerfully and freely or not
at all, and never seem to repent of it. A child should
be able to read clear as light in the countenance and
manner of those who have charge of her, all it concerns
her to know of their sentiments towards herself.
Good-humour should be maintained no less in strug-
gling with mental difficulties. When temper is lost.
over a troublesome lesson it is better to treat the fault
as one so childish and silly as to make the person who
can be guilty of it, hardly fit to be allowed to study.
This will more readily create a feeling of shame than if
the fault had been met with sharp reproof; and when
by conquering the ill-temper on the next occasion, the
child has discovered how much that very emotion had
tended to cloud her understanding, she will be more
earnest in future endeavours. When real difficulties
126
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
have to be overcome, the teacher should be more anxious
about the mood in which they are met than about the
result. The knowledge proposed to be gained, if not
mastered to-day may be mastered to-morrow or next
year, but every day, every hour does its work in
forming good or bad habits. The pupil must be early
accustomed to encounter difficulties with patience and
courage, without hesitation and especially without those
miserable lamentations many children are allowed to
indulge in, which impair energy and enfeeble the
understanding. The word 'impossible' should be un-
known in a school-room. It is the teacher's duty to
know her pupils' disposition and capacity, and to regu-
late their tasks accordingly. If they have had expe-
rience of her knowledge they will soon trust her. It
is the child's nature to trust its elders, and when we
hear so much about the necessity of winning children's
confidence and respect, the truth is it is only by dint
of inconsistency and ignorance that we ever forfeit
them.
A quiet unhesitating authority-a rule unswerving
in its exaction of what has once been established, great
gentleness making the sternness of moral disapprobation
if called forth, to be more sensibly felt, these quali-
ties in a teacher will insure around children that
calm atmosphere which is so essential to allow the
faculties full play without moral disturbance. The
feeling of necessity gives great unity and intensity to
exertion, and thus it is desirable that in study as in
conduct, the absolute necessity of obedience should be
felt till good habits are formed and the sense of duty
has acquired strength to maintain its post as the great
taskmaster of life.
GENTLENESS.
127
Section 4.-The great antagonist of all forms of
defective temper is, as I before remarked, the cultiva-
tion of the benevolent affections, of which the daily
home manifestations are gentleness, unselfishness, and
a sense of the duty and pleasure of being useful.
Gentleness is a compound of good-temper, tenderness
and refinement, and carries with it a spell for turning
away wrath and winning its way even to rugged hearts.
It is compatible with every vigorous quality of mind and
character; indeed the latter without it, will avail women
little in some of the most difficult circumstances of
their lives. If she whose position, as far as it rises
above that of a mere subordinate to man's will, depends
wholly upon influence, will not be at the trouble to
make that influence loveable, she must expect to find
herself powerless, while the right of the strongest
prevails.
A better standard of home manners among children
would do much to cultivate gentleness. The words,
the tone, the action, which good breeding would banish
in company, good feeling should banish from the home
circle. Not that the drawing-room manners should
be the standard, though they may serve to point a
contrast; the feeling which is at the bottom of the
conventional form, or which the latter strives to simu-
late, is what we must arrive at. Let children learn
how all those rules of good breeding are framed to
produce the same outward semblance, which a gentle,
loving spirit devoid of pretension and presumption,
would naturally assume. They can be early taught to
see that the privilege of familiarity is to be more
unreserved, more confiding, to give and receive more
open and earnest sympathy, whether in suffering or
in pleasure, and not to be more selfish, more inat-
128
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
tentive to the wants and feelings of those we love than
we should be to those of strangers. In this, as in
most other points in education, example is indispensable.
Where children see a want of deference and gentleness
to each other among their elders, where there is none of
the courtesy of kind feeling to inferiors in station,
where the tone to servants is imperious, and where
they themselves are treated with a disregard to good
manners, it will be vain to expect more than a varnish
of good breeding. The roughest and rudest school
would not turn out the unmannerly cubs society is
too much afflicted with, if the tone of home manners
were one of refinement and unselfishness; and since
women are the first victims of domestic bad manners,
it is strange that as mothers, they are not more care-
ful to form them on a better model.
Close and delicate observation on which tact de-
pends is very essential to give due effect to good
manners. Girls should on no account be allowed to
grow up unobservant of the minutiæ of life and feeling
around them. The most amiable will wound or
irritate, will say the wrong thing, or withhold sympathy
when it is most needed, because they do not see, what
to the observing is clearly revealed. Never let slight
attentions be neglected, teach the pleasure of gratifying
an unspoken wish. The presence of old persons, or
invalids, or little children, affords an excellent school
for training this quality, and carelessness in observing
should be reproved as much as any other heedless habit.*
* A French writer uses a happy expression when she says—' La
prévenance c'est la menue-monnaie des affections, c'est l'art si doux et si
feminin de compâtir aux petites peines, de partager les petites satis-
factions, de caresser la pensée.'-Le Mariage au Point de Vue Chrétien.
Par Mde. de Gasparin. Vol. i. p. 113.
"
WOMEN NOT USUALLY SELFISH.
129
In serving others, whether at their request, or under
a sense of duty, great stress should be laid upon the
charm of prompt and cheerful kindness. A very young
child can be made to understand that a service slowly
or grudgingly yielded, the cost of a sacrifice painted on
the countenance and exhibited before the person who
has consented to accept it, destroys its value. In the
same manner she will easily feel the difference between
the generous and the ungenerous spirit of liberality—
that which merely gives, whether time, or trouble, or
money, and that which makes the gift a messenger
from heart to heart.
In ordinary conditions of health, the subordinate
position of women, which enforces much self-denial,
combined with the natural strength of their affections,
preserves them in great measure from the hateful vice
of selfishness; though many are led into selfish acts
through an irritable temper, the habit of acting with-
out reflection, through frivolity, indolence, or mere
ignorance. For it is well to remember that the
thoughtless are inevitably selfish, however guiltless in
intention. But the warm feelings of women, and the
mere habit of submitting at home to the will and
fancies of others, make it rare for them to follow a
deliberately selfish course, and prevent that complete
immersion in self of which we see examples in men
who are full of high and kind feeling when it is
distinctly appealed to a selfishness which blunts the
very perception of claims or rights that militate against
their own.
When women are really selfish, it is when a
thoroughly frivolous education, the absence of moral
discipline, and a life of trifling and amusement have
exercised their combined influence over a cold or a
K
130
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
shallow nature. In their utter ignorance of life, such
women are unconscious of the existence of any deeper
feelings, any higher duties, than they acknowledge
themselves. They have no perception of anything
nobler in human life than their own petty pursuits.
We see them accordingly sacrificing their husbands'
public or private interests, sometimes perilling his
character, for the gratification of some whim, incapable
of sympathising in any serious pursuit he has at heart,
even forgetting the claims of their children in a course
of careless indolence, or in the race after the wretched
pleasures of their butterfly existence. But, thank God,
such women are rare, and in those whom defects of
nature or education may lead into temporary disregard
of others, one touch of real feeling generally dispels
the mischief, and brings the self-denying, self-devoted
character of the true woman to light once more.
Whether the danger of growing selfish arises from
ill-health or thoughtlessness, the surest corrective is
the cultivation of the benevolent affections, and of the
sense of the duty of usefulness. The feeling that no
human being has a right to be a mere idle drone in
this great working world may be early awakened in
children, and is a powerful antagonist of selfishness.
Every kindly impulse should be cherished, but no reli-
ance placed on impulse alone. It is not simply where
we love, or where strong feelings point, that charity is
enjoined by Christianity, or that the duty of usefulness,
We have little time
a part of charity, is seen to end.
for sickly selfish fancies, when the wants, the cares,
the happiness, the sufferings of our fellow-creatures are
become our care; that which, according to the nature
of their claims upon us and the degree of power we
possess, we feel it a duty to attend to. The approaches
SOCIAL INSTINCTS.
131
of selfishness will still further be combated when the
young mind is able to understand the power of influ-
ence and the moral responsibility entailed by it; to see
that not one of us, however humble, can stand alone;
that we influence and are influenced-support and are
supported—injure and are injured, by each other's
opinions and actions, and that each one of us therefore
by the whole tenor of our conduct and thoughts is
making an impression for good or evil in that small
circle of our own generation that surrounds us, and
through them on how many more whose very being is
unknown to us?
Then again the social instincts of human nature may
be pointed out; those laws of our moral being which,
as Dr. Butler says, make it 'plainly appear that there
are real and the same kind of indications in human
nature, that we were made for society, and to do good
to our fellow-creatures, as that we were intended to
take care of our own life, and health, and private good.'*
These things all tend to prove that it is not by following
nature but only by sacrificing one part of our nature
to the other that man ever attempts to make self the
one pivot of action and desire. As well might he,
because the necessity of sleep is part of his constitu-
tion, neglect food or motion, which he is equally con-
stituted to require.
Views such as these presented to the young mind
when it first begins to reflect upon life, and its own
relations to what surrounds it, will have more influence
in making a selfish course appear utterly wrong and
unnatural than hours of lecturing about selfishness.
* BUTLER'S First Sermon upon Human Nature, p. 5. Fourth edition.
1749.
K 2
132
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION,
Long, however, before reflections of this nature could
be appreciated, the habit of attending to others may be
trained that active habit of kindness and usefulness
which is so opposed to all morbid feelings, whether of
selfishness or of compassion. Little children can easily
be led to think it a pleasure and a privilege to be
allowed to do something for others, a privilege which
the weakness and ignorance of their age seldom
allows them to enjoy, but which successive years by
adding to their power will enable them to use more
and more freely. They will also early feel pride and
pleasure in finding that their power of rendering ser-
vice entitles them to consideration from others-that in
proportion as they are useful they rise above the mere
childish condition. Services to be rendered at home to
a sick or aged person, attendance upon father or mother
when they are engaged in anything that requires assis-
tance, all these should be held up as pleasures. They
may be made the reward of good conduct, and the
privation of them the punishment for impatience or ill-
temper, which evidently prove the mind to be for the
time in an unfit state to have charge of another per-
son's comfort. Every little service rendered by a child
should of course be received with pleasure, never with
praise as if some act of virtue had been performed, but
with the simple words or manner expressive of gratifi-
cation in being oneself the object of active kindness.
Undoubtedly it is the mere duty of children to attend
upon their parents; but if the latter take the care and
attention as their due only, without a loving word to
reward the labour of love, the young heart loses half
the joy such performance of duty ought to bring, and
parents must not wonder if the time comes when they
receive only the attention that duty prompts, while the
HABITS OF USEFULNESS.
133
alacrity of affectionate service is shown where it is
greeted in the same spirit that offers it.
But parents who sternly accept the services of their
children, or are even exacting in requiring it, do them
a less injury than those who with mistaken indulgence
require nothing of them; who look upon it as a toil or
a hardship that a child's play, or a young person's pur-
suits or amusements, should be set aside to attend to
the wants or comforts of their elders. In the first case
the heart is defrauded of a joy only; in the latter it is
robbed of a high feeling; it is hardened against a call
of duty. And the mind, allowed to remain blunted to
the perception of the duty of being useful at home, is
not likely to be awake to the necessity of being useful
abroad.
One great danger of delicate health is that of falling
into selfish habits. Considerable attention to our own
wants, comforts, and sensations is forced upon us; the
wants and comforts of others are often unavoidably
sacrificed to us, till we run the risk of considering this
the natural state of things, and the poor self becomes
the centre of all thought and endeavour. When young
persons are subject to ill-health, it should be an object
of great solicitude to prevent this moral disease growing
upon the physical one. The young invalid should have
this danger of her position clearly pointed out to her:
all that is done for her so willingly and carefully
should be dwelt upon, and her thoughts turned fre-
quently to consider what means of kindness and use-
fulness are left to her in her comparatively powerless
state. If others run about for her, perhaps she can
write or work for them. There may be a younger
child to teach, or a little thing to watch while it
plays about, and would disturb those who have more
134
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
business on their hands. Or an aged relative may
just require the presence of some person in the room,
or such slight services as any may perform who are not
actually deprived of motion. Even if in the latter state,
the notion of usefulness must not be abandoned-the
mind must not be left to the dreary worship of self.
Many little offices of kindness may even then be per-
formed in the way of needlework, or accounts, or hearing
a child read; and if by no such small things, then by
what is greater and nobler than any manual service, by
the example of patience and courage, by the daily con-
flict carried on between the soaring spirit and the
suffering body, the sight of which may influence for
ever the minds of those who frequently behold it.
'They also serve who only stand and wait,'
said our great poet; and we must be ready to accept
any form of service towards our fellow-creatures that
God is pleased to call upon us to undertake.
High-spirited imaginative girls easily fall into the
error of forgetting the value of small things, and because
they cannot reform prisons, undertake great works of
benevolence, or spend their energy in missionary labours
or plans of national utility, they sit down and mourn
over woman's destiny, and let each day float down the
stream of time with its freight of small duties and
cares unobserved and unattended to. They require to
have the peculiarities of woman's vocation of usefulness
explained to them. All the rough work of the world
is done for them; in all classes that are above manual
labour they generally, at any rate after marriage, know
nothing of care or toil beyond their own homes. A
few eager spirits may wish it were not so, but the great
majority find this the most happy and suitable condition
CHEERFULNESS.
135
for the feeblest half of the human race; it follows
then that all the small daily cares that make home an
abode of comfort-the kindly service, the prompt feel-
ing and sympathy, all the labour of love that softens
trial, or soothes sorrow, or comforts in sickness, is their
debt to society. It is not merely a matter of feeling
requiring that the service should be requited with feel-
ing, but a question of duty, into which the idea of
requital does not enter at all. This view of woman's
vocation guards her at once against the danger of
despising small means of usefulness, or of being absorbed
in trifling things. When trifles are duly considered in
their relations as parts of a wider system, we need not
fear that they should tend to foster frivolity.
Section 5.-One very essential point, both as re-
gards health and temper, is the cultivation of habitual
cheerfulness. To women it is doubly necessary. When
we consider woman's life, we see that it is less subject
than man's to sudden vicissitudes of fortune, to bitter
mortifications and failures of ambition; but on the other
hand it is far less brightened by hope, less supported by
the feeling of power to conquer fate by energy and exer-
tion. Even among those who do labour to better their
fortunes, the means are so small, the paths so few, that
success itself affords to the mind no better stimulus than
the hope of earning a subsistence, and perhaps of avoid-
ing a miserable dependence in old age.
Among the large classes of women who are exempt
from all necessity of labour, depression is not unfre-
quently the tone of their whole lives—a grey sunless
day sinking into a cloudy twilight. Marriage, the one
event that can bring change, is too often sought from
136
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
motives which leave little right to complain that it has
not brought happiness; and if shrinking from this un-
certain lot a woman remains unmarried, then her years
glide by in joyless monotony. Like some cheerless
heath spreading out under the fading twilight, where
no sound of human activity or gladness meets the ear,
so the long future stretches out before her, and the
spirit in which she will tread it must depend on the
state of her own mind alone. Even in the ordinary
trials or depressing circumstances of life which come
alike to us all, a man has his business or his profession
to distract his thoughts; it may be irksome at first to
attend to it, but it is a real blessing in the end. If he
have no business he is free to seek the relief of change;
he can subdue gloom or irritability by the help of
bodily motion on foot or on horseback, or seek society
if he is in a mood to wish for it. But a woman must
bear her depression in the midst of the same daily
occupations which the very depression has made dis-
tasteful to her. Her business or relaxation is equally
among the home scenes which recal and keep alive every
painful association; and if she have no power in herself
to resist the influence of circumstances, they will inevi-
tably affect the nerves, and perhaps permanently depress
the spirits.
Another reason makes it essential to women that the
tone of their spirits should not depend on external
stimulus; it is this: that not only are the occasions
when they can enjoy such stimulus comparatively rare,
but the excitement itself is generally frivolous in its
nature; it rouses no energy, it makes no call on the
intellect, it comes in the form of pleasure only, and to
rely on pleasure for so inestimable a blessing as cheer-
fulness, is like depending for light on the flickering
DEPRESSION IN CHILDREN.
137
glare of a gas-burner, while the broad sunshine is un-
heeded without. The source of cheerfulness, then, like
every other spring of action in woman's life, must be
from within, from habitual self-regulation.
But the strength required to be cheerful under a
naturally depressed condition is greater than is generally
allowed by those who have not themselves been obliged
to struggle against the opposite tendency; a habit of
cheerfulness deserves therefore to be sedulously culti-
vated from early childhood. It is true that in child-
hood depression is rare except under circumstances of
real suffering, bodily or mental; but the latter is more
common than ordinary observers suppose. When sur-
rounded with substantial kindness, when real wants are
supplied and reasonable indulgence shown, we are apt
to take it for granted that a child has all it requires
and must be happy; but some children require more,
and are far from happiness in this apparently enviable
condition. The more they want arises from a craving
of the mind which is sometimes overlooked altogether,
and sometimes when perceived is, perhaps with the best
intentions, purposely set at nought. It is an over-
sensitive nature in the child, or an easily excited
imagination or nervous system, that makes it require
sympathy, and long to pour out feelings or fancies that
come with a sort of nameless oppression, half pleasure,
half pain; and kind-hearted persons think they are
doing right to check this, which they believe tends to
weaken the mind, and thus they will not afford the
relief and support the child wants, but leave it to
struggle alone. Now if it were true that by such a
process we did strengthen the over-sensitive nature, this
course, however painful, might often be right; but it is
not so-the mind recoils from the touch of coldness or
138
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
sarcasm-thought and feeling are repressed outwardly,
to be cherished all the more in secret. Boys, who in
addition to this injudicious treatment at home go
through the rough worldly apprenticeship of school,
grow hard, and often, as a natural consequence, selfish ;
while girls become depressed, morbid in fancy and
sentiment, and with that painful feeling of isolation
which springs from the consciousness of living spiritually
alone while surrounded by those who are nearest and
dearest. It scarcely needs remark how directly such a
state of feeling at a later period leads a girl into the
danger of taking the first man who speaks words of love
to her, for the one being fated by Heaven to give her
the sympathy she has craved for so long in vain.
However wayward or foolish, then, a child's fancy or
emotions may appear, it is most important that the
young creature should never feel itself misunderstood,
or looked upon with derision. Give sympathy first,
and then the child will easily be led to believe that
greater knowledge and experience of life will correct
the views or sober the sentiments which she has now
expressed. Whenever it can be done with truth, it is
advisable to point out that those views or sentiments
are quite natural at her age, or with her turn of mind;
that others have felt the same, and have gradually come
round to other feelings. By this means the young
mind is saved alike from the temptation of continuing
to maintain from vanity what she believes to be peculiar
or interesting, and from the feeling of half-sadness and
half-fear which possesses acutely sensitive minds, when,
in their inexperience, they believe that they stand alone
in sentiment or opinion. The difficulties of dealing with
cases of this nature are among the many things that
make unimaginative persons so unfit to have the charge
CHEERFUL ACTIVITY.
139
of children at any age. However kindly or high-
minded their influence may be, it throws a chill shadow
around, beneath which many a root of bitter or un-
healthy feeling has sprung up to a sickly growth.
.
At
Everything round children, the voice, manner, tone
of thought of those who are most with them,—should
be cheerful. The nature of a healthy child is to be
happy; it requires no outward stimulus; active or
passive enjoyment is the normal condition of its
existence; but it is easily disturbed, not only by illness
but by bad management or uncongenial influence.
a later period, when nature has no longer undisturbed
sway, the severer the mental labour required, and the
higher the sense of duty inculcated, the more careful
should we be that no sternness accompanies them.
Cheerful alacrity in conduct, as in study, is the quality
to aim at. The love of knowledge and the delight it
is calculated to afford should be kept before the mind,
not the dry necessity of working up to any fixed point.
And so with conduct: we may instil into the young
heart the conviction that the peace of a satisfied con-
science is a treasure, for the loss of which no joy to be
gained by a sacrifice of duty can compensate-we may
inspire the love of truth and goodness, that love that
'casteth out fear,' and makes gloom seem almost alien
to religion. Every encouragement should be given to
all forms of healthy innocent enjoyment, to merry
games, to light-hearted fun; more especially should
this be our endeavour at the age when the happiness
of early childhood—that happiness in mere existence—
passes away; when the restless spirit begins to stir
within, and to inquire and sound its own sensations and
sift its enjoyments; then double care should be taken
to surround it as far as may be with all things bright
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
and fair, and to keep the mind not only active but
joyous in its activity.
We are perhaps too apt to look upon religion as the
proper source of cheerfulness; unfortunately with some
minds, it rather leads to calm endurance, than to a
cheerful struggle with the ills of life. The mind
naturally subject to depression learns from ordinary
religious views to despise this weary existence while
looking forward to happiness beyond; but not to
seize and cultivate all the means of cheerfulness and
innocent enjoyment which can make this life happier to
ourselves and others while it pleases God to leave us
upon earth. Religion is indeed the only true source of
resignation and fortitude under real calamity, under
those dire strokes of Fate which unpeople the world to
us with the closing of a grave, or make life so bitter
that if earth were our only heritage, it would be mere
weak folly to stay and bear its tortures. Here it is that
religion comes in with its sublime motives and hopes,
and strengthens the fainting, and calms the maddening
soul. But in the petty trials of every-day life, the
mind, however pious, will be swayed by its constitu-
tional tendency to cheerfulness or despondency. A very
uncharitable judgment is sometimes passed on those
who are habitually depressed, when it is supposed that
if they really believed in what they profess to hold
sacred, they could not be cast down by earthly trials.
Persons who judge in this manner not only overlook
the considerations I have urged, but also forget this
fact, that the very trial the naturally depressed have
always to contend with, is inability to hope; there lies
the very root of their suffering. If they had power to
draw consolation from a distant prospect of happiness
or assurance of good, and thus to derive cheerfulness from
RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY.
141
religious trust, they would not be so powerless to see the
cheering tints which, to more happily constituted minds,
brighten also the gloom of daily life. There is another
danger in trusting to religion principally as the means
of cultivating a cheerful spirit-namely, that naturally
depressed minds are at least equally likely to seize.
upon the terrors as the consolations of religion, and
then another victim is added to the many whom reli-
gious melancholy has led to the very threshold of a
mad-house,—if not through its gates, to the less dreary
refuge of the grave.
Highly-wrought sensibility, great susceptibility of
feeling, the quick and exquisite sensation of pleasure
or of pain,—all these, which are common to the delicate
nervous organizations of women, are foes to habitual
cheerfulness; not only because what are slight wounds
to harder natures are deeply painful to them, but also
because after every excitement follows a reaction: the
nerves are unstrung, and whether pain or pleasure has
been the exciting cause, depression follows, just as a
period of complete exhaustion follows some over-exertion
of physical strength. This is one of the points that
requires very delicate handling in female education, and
in which the remedy must come entirely from cultivat-
ing an opposing principle of strength. Repression,
even could it be successful, would be dangerous in
other respects; with natures such as I am speaking of,
the feelings, denied all outward manifestation, would
only prey upon the mind, and either affect health or
give a morbid tone to the whole character. Girls must
undoubtedly be taught to control emotion, and to be
reserved in expressing strong feeling; but the feeling
itself should never be checked—it is the very life of
woman. Better were it for her to remain over-sensitive
142
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
;
or weak, the creature of warm impulse and erring judg-
ment, anything but hard and insensible. In the
former case she may be unhappy and win little respect,
but in the latter she becomes a thing out of nature, and
closes our hearts against her. The world has suffered
enough from women's feebleness and ignorance; but
life would be a dreary wilderness, a cold arena of dis-
cussion and strife, without woman's tenderness and
sympathy.
The
Nature provided against this, the worst evil, by
giving to women generally great strength and warmth
of feeling in proportion to their mental power; it is the
duty of education to correct what might become.
dangerous in this natural tendency by using every
means to strengthen the reason. Unfortunately the
common method has been the reverse of this.
exuberant sensibility has either been coldly checked
and silenced, or where this has not been aimed at, the
weakness has been encouraged by the frequent appeal
to sentiment and the neglect of all vigorous cultivation
of the understanding; while moral training itself has
been exclusively based upon religion, the highest of all
appeals to the feelings.
Parents should be on their guard with a foreign
governess, lest instead of repressing she should rather
cultivate sensibility as something interesting, and
encourage the exhibition of emotion. One of the
striking characteristics of the English is their calm self-
possession. This may be carried too far; the calmness
may be cold as foreigners generally esteem it to be, and
the repression of emotion may tend to repress feeling
too much, and to produce that unloveable disposition
that neither gives nor values sympathy. But, except
when thus exaggerated, calmness and self-possession are
EXPRESSION OF FEELING.
143
among the most valuable features of character, and
deserve more especially to be cultivated in women,
whose naturally quick susceptibility and irritable
nervous temperaments require all the force of habit to
keep them in that equable condition in which judgment.
is fit to act, and reason able to maintain the empire
over feeling. Exaggerated sentiment, whether expressed
in language or in violent emotion, is also likely in
England to expose persons who fall into it to ridicule
and misconstruction. It is repugnant to English tastes
and habits, and is not only harshly judged, but it is
also perhaps more dangerous when combined with other
features of our national character. The feeling or
emotion which with the easily excited and easily changed
mood of the majority of foreigners evaporates in mere
words or in tears of joy or grief, becomes far more
intense when joined to the deeper and more earnest
disposition of the English: the first outburst is not
more violent, but it cannot pass away so rapidly; it
shakes the over-sensitive mind to its very depths,
leaving a morbid tone-a fitful state of excitement and
depression, that is unhealthy to body and mind.
Madame de Saussure, in her work on Education,
speaks more than once of the craving for strong emo-
tions as a fault women are likely to fall into. That
this is not true of English women we may well rejoice
to say, for it would be difficult to describe a state of
feeling more likely to be injurious to purity and refine-
ment of mind as well as to happiness. One glance at
the calm sphere of domestic joys and duties which con-
stitute woman's world, suffices to show that suffering, if
not degradation, must be the result of that restless
craving. Not only, however, do we find that it is
a common fault among foreigners, but Madame de
144
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Saussure speaks of a 'prétension à l'impressionabilité'
as one of the characteristics of the times, and I can
hardly fancy a worse form of affectation, or one more
calculated to excite disgust in all who value delicacy of
feeling. Madame de Saussure compares it with the
affectation of learning, which had exposed women to
so much ridicule, and justly considers it far more
reprehensible; but in truth the latter is a harmless
folly, which scarcely deserves to be brought into such
comparison.
Whether the Germans may be accused of this odious
affectation of a fault I know not, but there is an excited
tone about their correspondence and in their works of
fiction which proves the existence of the fault itself.
Friendship borrows the vehemence of passion, joy is
ecstatic, grief is despair, religion is a rapturous senti-
ment, and thought itself is expressed in high-flown
imagery; distinctness and accuracy being too often
sacrificed to a vague grandeur of conception. These
are forms of language too prevalent in Germany not to
indicate prevailing mental defects, which we should be
sorry to see gaining any ground in this country. These
are, therefore, points deserving serious attention in
engaging either a French or a German governess; it is
probable that the influence of the latter might be more
injurious, because stronger, than that of the former.
The vague sentiment and enthusiasm of the Germans
has a deeper root than the vapouring exaggeration of
the French; they are more earnest, and therefore more
likely to influence; they are more sad, and have there-
*Vanité pour vanité, celle-là (la pédanterie) ne serait pas si pro-
fondement corruptrice que l'envie aujourd'hui si fréquente d'eprouver soi-
même et d'exciter des emotions.'-Education Progressive, vol. iii. p. 134.
*
REPRESSION OF MORBID FEELING.
145
fore more affinity with the English mind and would be
more readily imbibed by the pupil.
Whenever we apprehend danger from the over-
excitement of the emotional part of our nature, the
surest means to avert it is by the sedulous exercise
of the faculties on subjects which for a time pre-
clude the sway of feeling. Let the high sensibility
be directed to channels of active benevolence, where the
force of habit will tend to lessen passive impressions,
and therefore to calm emotion and sober fancy, while
strengthening the desire for exertion in the cause of
others. Cherish all quiet, cheerful forms of pursuit or
amusement. Give full and warm sympathy whenever
you can feel justified in doing so, and thus win the
right to attack all morbid sentiment without incurring
a suspicion of coldness; and carefully but unobtrusively
draw the thoughts away from regions where feeling and
emotion can be kindled, to find mental excitement in
new forms of knowledge or speculation, or in wider
observation of life and action. By such means we
may hope to preserve the exquisite sensibility which is
so great a charm, while ensuring a considerable measure
of that serene cheerfulness which is so important to hap-
piness and that strength of judgment and habitual
command of reason without which the most loveable
natures fall miserably below the influence and the
power of usefulness that ought to be theirs.
Another difficulty with regard to repressing quick
susceptibility in girls is that this very susceptibility is
what makes them keenly alive to praise and censure,
and there are few points in female education harder to
deal with than this. We have seen that the constant
care for appearances tends to deaden moral courage, yet
we cannot say to a girl, 'Be indifferent to opinion so
L
146
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
long as you are right, pursue your course with self-
confidence, only avoiding presumption.' The advice
would be full of peril and moreover almost impossible
to follow, for it involves a false assumption, the self-con-
fidence could never have any real basis. The quiet
routine of domestic life affords no sufficient criterion
by which our own powers can be accurately tested. A
boy tries his strength among his equals from the
moment he goes to school. He learns his own value,
be it high or low; later the same lesson is given on a
wider stage, therefore it is that diffidence is less pleas-
ing, and conceit far more inexcusable in men than in
women. No young woman can have so tried her own
capability or worth as compared with others, as to
arrive at a reasonable appreciation of herself, or to have
reached that assurance of power on which a rational
self-confidence is grounded. This is one cause, both of
timidity and of that eager snatching at some wider
exercise of their faculties, which is occasionally seen,
and which is reproved or ridiculed as love of excite-
ment by those men especially who though they have
the widest sphere of activity opened to themselves.
restrict their exertions to the stable or the kennel.
In this inability to feel confident of herself, how
could a woman be indifferent to opinion, even were
such indifference safe? Truly, the most excellent of
women may not dare with impunity to disregard even
the trifles of public opinion. The small pleasures of
such independence are far from being worth the penalty
which will assuredly be exacted. The higher a
woman's tone of character, the more earnest her desire
to tread a wider path of usefulness than most of her
sex are content with, and the greater her capacity for
doing so, the more will she consult her own happiness
VALUE OF HOME APPROBATION.
147
and the interest of her own pursuits and influence, by
scrupulously attending to the trifles which the world
expects a woman to understand. There is no better
reason for teaching women to detest frivolity than this,
that they never can throw off the yoke of trifling
things.
.
While girls are thus forced to measure many actions
of daily life by an uncertain standard, it is evident
that the quick susceptibility, by means of which
they read only too easily the feelings of others con-
cerning them, may often become an instrument of
torture, yet we dare not encourage indifference. The
best safeguard a young girl can have is in perfect
respect, reverence, and love for the guides of her
youth, which makes trust in their approbation take the
place of self-confidence. It is in this respect that
parents who over-value their daughters, and express
their joy and pride in them in a manner offensive
sometimes to good taste, fall into a less dangerous
error than those who are ever ready to find fault, or
who even withhold the expression of their praise or
esteem. The girl who is depressed at home from not
feeling sure of approbation or sympathy, will have no
ground of self-confidence abroad. Want of experience
may lead her to vacillation in conduct, and hesitation
in manner, seeking to please, and afraid to offend; or
else to defiant determination to take her own way, not
aware that what she calls honest and straightforward,
the world will call presumptuous and singular. But
on the other hand, she who knows that she is valued
and approved by those who know and love her best,
and whose opinion is to her all that is wise in public
opinion, will be in a state of calm yet safe indifference
about the judgment of others; she has self-reliance,
L 2
148
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
but it is not the confidence of presumption.
There
is a source of rest and strength in this feeling, even
if it be not altogether well-grounded, and we may be
sure the experience of a few years will correct any
error fostered by a too partial estimate; while, on the
contrary, the uncertainty and restlessness caused by
the opposite system are poison to a life which, in all
essential things, must be bounded by home.
·
The quiet self-possession which springs from the
feeling of being loved and valued at home for what we
are really worth, by those whose opinion we respect, is
also a great safeguard against vanity. The vain are
for ever oscillating between the weakest dependence
and the most assuming self-confidence, if indeed that
word can be applied in any sense to the capricious
mood born of the approbation or flattery of others.
The estimate formed at home must be upon solid
and permanent qualities of heart and mind; the esti-
mate formed of young girls in society can only be
founded on the impressions made by manner, voice,
liveliness of conversation, accomplishments, or more
commonly by dress and appearance; these, therefore,
assume an undue importance in proportion as the
opinion of society and not home approbation is the
test of her own merit which a girl is led to depend
upon. I believe the almost unavoidable importance
that opinion assumes in a life which affords no means
of testing our worth or powers as compared with others,
gives the appearance of vanity to many a woman whose
heart is really free from it, accordingly it is often a
less enduring fault in women than in men, the weak-
ness of early years only, corrected by experience and
the earnest duties of life. Men have not in their
youth the natural inducements to vanity that women
VANITY.
149
are surrounded with, nor do they throw it off with the
follies of youth.
But where there is a natural tendency to vanity,
there is scarcely a fault that a mother should watch
more assiduously or check more severely; whereas un-
fortunately it is encouraged not only indirectly by
the whole system of education, which looks to appear-
ances instead of realities, but even directly as a thing
to be desired in itself. Parents have been heard to
say that they wished their daughters to be vain; that
a woman was unendurable without vanity. In other
words, that a woman was nothing worth without the
applause of society, and that the surest way of winning
that applause is early to make it the ruling principle
of life. And according to their aim they are right.
It is another instance of the children of the world,
being 'wiser in their generation than the children of
light,' for there is that perfect harmony between the
means and the end, which ensures success.
Its
The dangers of vanity to women are manifold.
gratification must be sought out of home, and that
alone is sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all who
look to woman's real happiness; it leads of course to
prefer display to knowledge, brilliant appearances to
unassuming realities, flattery to affection and sincerity.
A vain person also is generally one of slow and rare
sympathies. The mind engrossed with the thought of
the impression it wishes to produce or has produced,
has little leisure to read the feelings of others, still
less to forget itself in their happiness or misery. Vanity
is a perennial source of selfishness and weakness. It
makes even great and good actions, when the nature is
capable of such, subservient to a little purpose. Self
is still the centre, applause the breath of life; and
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
talent, affections, home joys, and the real esteem of
mankind are sacrificed to the petty triumphs, on which
the soul, starved from better food, has been taught to live.
Vanity in women most commonly attaches itself to
personal appearance, and if it stopped there would be
simply ridiculous. But this frivolous form of the vice
too commonly leads to another which is too hateful for
ridicule, to vanity in the power of playing with human
feelings, self-gratulation in making a manly heart bleed
under strokes given in sport; triumph in seeing a
woman's life wither under the loss of ties a despicable self-
worship has withered. She who began with being vain of
a mere outward form, ends with being vain of a crime!
It is true that personal vanity does not always lead
to coquetry, and that coquetry itself may be of a less
dangerous character than here described; but the
former must be contemptible, and the latter cannot
be altogether innocent; it cannot be free from guile,
it cannot be guiltless of sporting with feelings which
every simple and honest heart will hold sacred; it
must be indifferent, to say the least, to exciting the
storm it has no power to quell.
The miserable system of match-making so prevalent
in England, by which girls are dressed up and taken
out into society to find husbands, is of course a hot-
bed of vanity and coquetry. It is not what they are
but what they can seem during a few gay hours which
ensures the triumph; it is not the esteem to be slowly
won, but the feelings to be quickly excited, the passion
to be kindled and kept in play that secure the desired
object. No wonder while such is the parents' aim for
their daughters, that frivolity and vanity should preside
over the education.
Those who have other aims will watch the first
MISTAKEN TREATMENT.
151
buddings of vanity, and take every precaution to pre-
vent their expansion. Some people wishing to check a
vain child, decry her appearance or abilities, and fancy
that by thus slighting her, they will lead her to think
less of herself. But such a system would, even in the
case of mere conceit, act as a temporary check only.
The wrong feeling would be mortified not changed. On
the contrary, praise warmly given at times, adds force to
the censure expressed on other occasions.
It is better to be quite candid with young girls, both
as to their appearance and abilities, they should have
no flattering discoveries to make in society, and though
they will find advantage of looks or manner valued
more in proportion there than at home, that will not do
much mischief when they have learned the value of the
higher praise which a woman can win at home only.
The consciousness of possessing well founded regard
and approbation in her own family must, as I said
before, replace to her the self-reliance which public
success gives to a man, and from early childhood we
may be building up the associations which shall make
such regard and approbation a heart-felt joy, and mere
drawing-room praise a thing of small account, like any
of the other pleasant sounds or scenes that excite a
momentary enjoyment, and are forgotten as soon as
they have passed.
Section 6.-The state of the health and of the phy-
sical constitution generally affect more or less all the
points we have dwelt upon in this chapter; and this
view, so important in education, is one which appears
to me not to be attended to as it deserves. Irritability
or good-temper, cheerfulness or discontent, alacrity or
•
152
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
sullenness, selfishness, susceptibility, diffidence, and
timidity, all are influenced by the physical elements of
the constitution, the favourable or unfavourable orga-
nization, or nerves, or by mere differences of strength,
and it must be the educator's ceaseless task so to watch
that while health is cherished to the utmost, yet that
as childhood passes away the spiritual nature may more
and more rise above the dominion of the physical, and
attain to as much freedom as is compatible with the
mysterious conditions of our double existence. In
childhood our great care must be to remove all phy-
sical hindrances to mental and moral development, and
in youth to awaken the courage which looks steadily
at the physical condition, whatever it may be, and de-
termines to conquer or to endure in patience.
I must not be supposed to refer all moral or mental
symptoms to the bodily condition, for no doubt excellent
health has often accompanied a most distressing state
of moral feeling, I simply mean that the connexion
between the two is too intimate to be ever safely over-
looked, and that although many children for instance
may be ill-tempered and discontented without suffering
in health, there is always a suspicion that the latter is
not right, and that if the irritability or the depression
are simply mental they will at any rate be greatly
aggravated by neglect of physical precautions.
Temper in most children suffers almost immediately
from any bodily discomfort, and habitual fretfulness
under circumstances when a child ought to be happy
and contented is perhaps always the sign of something
internally wrong, it may be of some constitutional
peculiarity which medical investigation alone would
detect. On the other hand a fit of passion will disturb
the circulation or digestion, and frequently repeated
PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF PASSION.
153
may interfere materially with health. Observations
such as these are almost inevitably made in every
nursery, but they are not consistently acted upon in the
management of the children. Illness or naughtiness
is apparent at the moment, and no sufficient trouble is
taken to ascertain whether the cause was moral or
physical. One child, for instance, who has made itself
ill with a fit of passion is petted and coaxed as an
invalid, while it really deserves punishment, and might
receive it in a beneficial form either by taking a dose
of medicine or being sent to bed. Another child on
the contrary who is not obviously ill is scolded as
naughty, while in truth it is suffering from that general
nervous irritation which proceeds from bodily derange-
ment.
Another point not sufficiently considered in the
management of passionate children, especially if of a
nervous organization, is the violence of the physical
agitation which accompanies the mental paroxysms.
It should be remembered that all emotion, even though
springing from some moral source, is partly physical in
its effects. The habit of years enables us to control
these signs by which every passion, whether joy or
grief, love, hate, or fear, betrays its presence, and in
some constitutions they may be entirely suppressed; in
general however even after the mental emotion has
subsided the nerves are still shaken, the lips quiver, the
heart is still disturbed in its action, the breath comes
quick or laboured, and if this be so in the full vigour
of life, how can we expect it to be otherwise with the
tender frame of the young creatures who have not yet
learnt to control or to conceal any physical sensation?
yet how common it is when a child has had a violent
fit of passion to hear it commanded suddenly to stop
154
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
crying, to banish the signs of ill-temper, to speak
certain words under threat of punishment, while there
is actual physical impossibility of obeying? If the
disobedience be then treated as a fault, the child feels
the injustice; and supposing the original sin to have
been one of temper, the evil is only increased; a new
burst of violence may even follow from the irritation
caused by fruitless attempts to obey a command which
should never have been given. When a child has been
shaken by emotion, the latter should have ample time
to subside. Where there is reason to believe that the
child is willing to make an effort, it is well to express
that belief, speaking gently but without any relaxation.
of firmness. Lying down a few minutes will help to
still the beating of the heart, and the throbbing of the
temples which show how the delicate frame has suffered ;
and a glass of cold water will sometimes restore the
power of self-command by helping to overcome that
involuntary sobbing, which ill-judged persons scold at
as naughtiness and thus increase, while it is completely
hysterical in its character and requires the same quiet-
ing treatment as any other nervous affection.
It is common to hear it said that a child is in 'a
naughty mood;' and it is true that irritability, peevish-
ness, in short every form of perverse temper the little
creature is liable to often does recur in fits, not appa-
rently owing to outward circumstances that have pro-
voked it, but to the mood within. This surely points
to some cause that deserves to be sought out. In-
judicious teachers choose that time to be more than
usually exacting, and thereby provoke the rebellious.
spirit they intended to break.
The naughty mood should on the contrary be a
time for forbearance. There is probably some physical
CURIOUS CASE OF TEMPER.
155
cause at work, if we could detect it; digestion or cir-
culation is wrong, and at any rate the mind being in
a sick state, it is manifestly not a moment to test its
strength. It might be dangerous to let a child see
that such considerations, which he cannot understand,
affect our view of his conduct; but unless they do so,
we shall certainly fail very often in our treatment of
him. Let all irritating things be avoided as far as
possible at such times; it is better to be blind or deaf
to slight things, which if noticed must call forth
rebuke, since the disturbed mood is perhaps only wait-
ing for an occasion of contest, the excitement of which
gives a morbid pleasure. If it could be done without
incurring suspicion of the motive, it would be well on
such occasions rather to abridge the lessons, and increase
the sleep or the exercise according to circumstances.
Sometimes this may be openly avowed, when the alter-
native for the lessons is not agreeable enough to induce
a child to remember the naughty day with any satisfac-
tion. The books may be closed on the plea that the
child is evidently unfit to attend or derive any profit
from it, and an hour in bed, or spent in walking up
and down, as circumstances may suggest, may be sub-
stituted for the lesson. Tiring out the limbs while
breathing fresh air invigorates the nerves is one of the
best modes of subduing irritation.
I knew a child who, from seven years old till she
was thirteen, was subject to the most fearful violence of
temper unless she walked many miles every day.
Everything was vigorous in her except her power of
self-restraint. Had she been confined to a school-room,
and forced to do, or punished for not doing like other
children, those years would probably have been spent
in constant disgrace and wretchedness, and moral vic-
156
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
tory would perhaps only have been purchased at last
by the sacrifice of the physical strength. But a more
rational system was adopted. She was allowed to take
the full amount of exercise her peculiar constitution
required, going out sometimes for hours with her
father; she went to bed earlier than the other children,
great attention was paid to all the detail of health, she
did few lessons, and those more often alone than with
her sisters. The result of this mode of treatment was,
that her health was excellent; gradually more equi-
librium was established between the moral and physical
power, and as she grew beyond childhood, nothing
remained of the intemperate nature, while she retained
great strength and quickness of feeling, and a vigorous
decided character.
The necessity of submitting children of different
temperaments to the same treatment, is one of the evils
of schools which we ought to avoid in home-education.
It causes undoubtedly some increase of trouble if several
children do not sleep, walk, or study the same number
of hours, but the very difference of age within the
same family must render this necessary to a great
degree. The mistake is in not perceiving that con-
siderations of health are the most imperious necessity
of all, and that to sacrifice them to apparent method in.
following a set of rules, is to be truly ignorant of the
very nature and objects of method. In a work like
the present, rules must be laid down which give the
appearance of rigidity to a system, but nothing more is
meant than to state what seems the best course when
no superior reasons interfere. The whole moral, phy-
sical, and intellectual constitution of the individual child
must be taken into account before any system can be
DANGER OF TREATING ALL ALIKE.
157
decided upon; and then none given in books will pro-
bably be adopted without modifications.
.
One child is eager to learn, or of an anxious, earnest
mind, and works its brain more during two hours than
one of an idle, volatile disposition in three; if there-
fore they are kept an equal time at lessons, the last
hour will over-task the more eager child, and very
likely tell upon health, producing nervous irritability
or depression. If by
If by a further mode of injudicious
treatment these symptoms of mental exhaustion are
treated as ebullitions of temper, there is a very good
chance of ending with a fit of sullenness, or tears, in
short, with the very evil it was intended to subdue.
Again, one child requires a course of stimulants both
moral and intellectual, while another is in need of seda-
tives, but careless teachers, or those who are too igno-
rant to watch minute symptoms, treat them alike, and
the depressed will too probably become sullen, and the
excitable captious, if not violent.
The physician is not sufficiently brought into the
counsels of those who are engaged in education. There
is too generally a half superstitious repugnance to
giving due weight to physical causes, as influencing
moral and intellectual development. In some minds
there is an unreasoning religious dislike to acknow-
ledging anything but the condition of the heart and
faith as having power over conduct. Another too
prevalent feeling, amounting to a superstitious dread, is
that with which the slightest approach to the subject
of mental deficiency or derangement is avoided; yet
who can tell how much of real and fearful insanity
might have been averted if the early symptoms of
mental malady, or of that want of balance in the faculties
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
which indicates lurking evil, had been watched and
guarded against from the beginning.
The word insanity suggests at once every image that
is painful and abhorrent to our minds, but we must
remember that there are almost numberless shades of
mental as of physical derangement, and that slight
symptoms of many fearful disorders show no revolting
aspect, and will lead to little or no mischief if checked
in time. Dr. Mayo* classes under one form of de-
rangement those in whom, while the ordinary faculties
of the understanding are developed, the moral sense
cannot be cultivated so as to have its just authority
over conduct. There would be in such persons a capa-
city for transacting business, but an incapacity for
truth or justice. Now without considering extreme
cases, what strange differences do we find in children
with regard to the obtuseness of the moral faculty!
Would it not be safer to regard it from the first, in
the light of an indication of possible disease, of partial
disturbance, than to content ourselves with moral ex-
hortations which the very character of the evil deprives
of all force? Would it not be better to seek any re-
medial measures that science can suggest than to let the
child grow up to be at the mercy of circumstance
whether he shall remain a mere selfish brute, impassive
to the highest motives that govern other men, or
whether he shall commit some fearful crime which will
make the very mother who bore him wish that she had
dug his grave by the side of his cradle ?
What again is that extreme waywardness which we
see in some children and which does not always pass
away with childhood; that apparent delight in being
* Elements of the Pathology of the Human Mind. Chap. x.
MENTAL CAUSES NEGLECTED.
159
naughty which later takes the form of craving for
strong emotions even of a painful kind? We take it
for granted that such conduct is voluntary, but is it
really so? is not the young creature suffering under a
debility of will which it may depend on our care and
treatment to restore? And our treatment will neces-
sarily depend upon the view which we take of the evil.
At first we naturally look upon such things as the
mere naughtiness of a child, but when ordinary remedies
fail, or when the evil outlasts the usual period for such
childish ebullitions, then it is surely time to look more
closely into the nature of the symptoms and their ten-
dencies and to shrink from no view however painful
which may help us to decide on the best means to be
adopted.
The case of the girl I mentioned above is one in
which physical treatment had a marked beneficial effect
upon the mind; the following is an equally remarkable
instance of the failure of ordinary modes of mental
and moral education in dealing with characters of an
unusual stamp. The child I allude to here had a
temper so violent that it baffled alike all measures of
severity and of gentleness. She made home a place of
torment to herself and others. Several persons in an
older generation of her family had been noted for fero-
cious tempers and eccentricity, not to use a stronger
term; but still the notion of infirmity of the brain does
not in her case seem to have presented itself, or if it
did, it was thrust aside without any one daring to seek
advice that might have thrown light upon the fearful
surmise. The parents still trusted to moral training
alone and the gradual influence of religious feeling to
eradicate the evil.
She was approaching her sixteenth year when she
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
was taken seriously ill, and from that time all symp-
toms of ill-temper and even of irritability disappeared.
She died at the end of a few months, having been a
pattern of gentleness and patience throughout her long
and trying illness. The connexion, whatever it might
have been, between the bodily and mental condition
was thus proved,-too late. Who can say what might
have been the result had a physician skilled in the
treatment of mental disorders or in tracing the delicate
connexion between mental and physical symptoms been
called in as soon as it became evident that the ordinary
motives and power of self-regulation of well-constituted
minds could not be awakened in her?
But how fearful to confess that we dread insanity,
or even slighter shades of mental derangement! True
-but do we avert an evil by refusing to look it in the
face? and is it not far more dreadful to allow such an
evil to steal on unperceived?
Nor is it with regard to the physical treatment alone
of children betraying unusual mental symptoms that
the advice of a medical man accustomed to close obser-
vation of mental and physical phenomena is likely to
be of use. Slight things, which to the inexperienced
seem of no importance, often suffice to indicate to him
that want of proportion and balance on which perfect
mental health depends, and would suggest to him pre-
cautions in the moral or intellectual discipline which
might counteract a threatened evil, or help to call
forth a too feeble faculty.
The necessity of watching moral symptoms as the
earliest indications of a disturbance of the mental facul-
ties, or as marking a predisposition to insanity which
may become fearfully developed should favourable cir-
cumstances occur, is very forcibly laid down by Dr.
IMPORTANCE OF MORAL SYMPTOMS.
161
What he says
Mayo in the work alluded to above.*
there of tendencies of a dangerous nature lurking in
moral and intellectual peculiarities, but especially in
the former, which are usually looked upon as of little
consequence, puts in a strong light the importance of
the view I am endeavouring to advocate.
For instance: how seldom do parents consider in any
serious light whether their children are more or less
cheerful, whether they are hopeful or desponding, con-
fident and resolute, or undecided and prone to regret?
When such points are thought of at all it is with a view
to their influence on active life, as leading to success
or failure in pursuits, and therefore with girls they are
perhaps uncared for altogether. But Dr. Mayo sees in
these states of the mind the first conditions of mental
health or disease. After carefully going over each
separate point and marking where the enfeebling in-
fluence begins, and in what manner it operates, he
sums up as follows:- If unavailing regrets, if hope-
fulness and either of its consequents, disappointment or
despondency, if fear, in any of its varieties beset us—it
the moral faculty be not strong enough to supply us
with fixed principles of action,-if a large development
of self-love afford us its appropriate source of regret,
and if our moral constitution has rendered us unsus-
ceptible of influence from sympathy, we are dangerously
situated quoad insanity whatever may be the vigour or
feebleness of those elements of our characters which
lead to active pursuits.'+
Yet these are the things which ordinary education
passes over as scarcely worthy of observation; trusting
* Elements of the Pathology of the Human Mind. By Dr. T. Mayo.
Chap. ii.
+ Ibid., p. 35.
M
162
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
to the experience of life to correct any defects which
may follow from them and may be regretted as un-
amiable or as detrimental to worldly advancement.
Should the experience of life, however, include circum-
stances tending to develope the lurking seeds of evil,
what will be the misery of those who in their ignorance
left them to germinate unheeded?
Dr. Mayo's views of the importance of intellectual
pursuits as bearing upon mental health are also full of
value; his remark on the recklessness with which pro-
fessional objects are held paramount to all others, and
a boy's career determined according to his intellectual
capacity and the incitements of ambition, without refe-
rence to his moral peculiarities and the whole tone of
his mind and character, are no less interesting in their
bearing upon the education of girls,—in which as these
worldly objects can hold no place, intellectual cultiva-
tion and the methodical preparation for future duties
and trials are neglected altogether. The mistake in
both cases is fundamentally the same, and proceeding
from the same ignorance and the same error in principle.
I have already had occasion to point out this fruitful
source of bad education, and here we find it denounced
as tending to deprive the mind of valuable safeguards,
against the disturbing forces which in the course of life
may threaten to unsettle or overthrow the balance of
the mental faculties.+ I might quote many passages
which would put this subject in a clearer light than
I can hope to do, and enforce it with an authority to
which I cannot pretend, but I prefer recommending
* Chap. i. p. 10.
+ See Dr. MAYo, pp. 41, 90, and 91; also p. 42 (quoted before).
ILLNESS PROMPTING DECEIT.
163
the perusal of this short work to all who are engaged
in education.
my
There are some cases of a very singular nature, in
which the blunting of the moral feelings appears to be
part of the disease, or at least accompanies its progress ;
cases in which young creatures formerly full of affec-
tionate feelings, and whose truth there had been no
reason to doubt, become practised impostors in simu-
lating illness and utterly indifferent to the misery they
are inflicting. In two instances which came under
own observation, and which were subsequently referred
to hysteria, inability to move or make the slightest
exertion was the assertion made by the patients and
persisted in, till real weakness induced by total want of
exercise of the muscles had verified it in great measure.
Attendants and friends in both cases suspected deceit;
in more than one instance, it was evident to all except
the parents who could not believe in a fraud, the effect
of which was to wring their hearts and destroy the
whole enjoyment of life to the young creature whose
natural impulse they maintained must have been for
activity and freedom.
Undoubtedly this is the healthy natural impulse, but
we are speaking of a condition in which the feelings
become morbid. It is most unnatural to make choice
of being prisoner to a couch during the gayest years of
life, and we cannot therefore understand such a prefe-
rence unless we look upon that as well as upon the
tendency to deceit and the indifference to the grief and
anxiety of others as part of the malady itself. This
was the view that forcibly struck me in both the in-
stances I have alluded to, and it has since been strongly
corroborated by an expression of Dr. Mayo's in the
M 2
164
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
book above quoted, where he says that 'mendacity is
a symptom of the hysterical constitution.**
And what still further confirms it is, that in one of
the cases I am alluding to, the moral nature remained
pure and even beautiful in all but the two points con-
nected with the illness; while in the other case, when
the illness passed away almost as suddenly as it came
on, and the patient returned to active life, all the worst
moral features and points of character which had been
a source of the deepest anxiety were at once softened,
and gave promise of complete reformation. In neither
case was the intellect impaired.
Now I am not supposing that in cases of this nature
the whole illness was an imposture; the limits of the
latter it would probably be very difficult to define. We
cannot tell in which part of that curiously united
physical and spiritual being the evil began, I am simply
deprecating the one-sided method of looking to that
part only in which the symptoms are most apparent.
In the case of strange ill-temper I mentioned before,
the moral infirmity was alone made the object of care,
neglecting the consideration of physical causes. In
these cases of hysteria the physical infirmity was most
apparent, and the moral symptoms were neglected.
Had the mother been able to admit the supposition
from the beginning, that falsehood and a morbid
craving for pity might be parts of the disease, doubtless
very different reports would have been made to the
medical men in attendance. Their observation would
perhaps have received a different direction, or physicians
who have made these subjects their more especial
study might have been called in, and their treatment
* Page 159.
FEARFUL RESULTS OF NEGLECT.
165
might have been combined with measures tending to
influence the patient's mind during any intervals when
it was in a more sane condition, in that particular
respect in which we must consider such a mind to be
diseased. I believe also that had the patient known
from the beginning that he was not considered to be in
a fit condition to make accurate statements about his
own illness, that a degree of delusion was known
to attend it, and must be guarded against, I believe
that had this been the case recovery would have been
facilitated, by smoothing the way for the patient to
make exertion without a sacrifice of pride.
How far such treatment would be advisable in other
respects, is of course a question for a physician
to decide; all I would suggest is, that parents may
add fearfully to the mischief of illness by refusing to
look at its mental as well as its physical manifestations.
With regard to girls, their peculiarly sensitive nervous
organizations make such precautions additionally neces-
sary. Hysteria especially is, in one form or another,
SO common among women, that its symptoms and
effects deserve serious consideration in the course
of their education. When we remember the many
clairvoyantes of the present day—the visions, the con-
versations with spirits, carried on mostly through the
medium of women, and other strange delusions which
only come to the knowledge of the physician or the
clergyman after they have shaken health or racked the
heart and conscience, we may surely admit that it
would be well if sound medical knowledge were brought
in to aid a stricter mental training, in giving to the
reason and the will greater power over the irritable
nerves and excitable imaginations of young girls.
We must remember, that the tendency of human
166
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
nature to action is so strong that a retired sedentary
life, such as most women lead, is almost sure to
aggravate any disturbance of the completely healthy
condition. Many forms of mental suffering now fre-
quent among them would probably be much lessened
were they exposed to the toils and hardships of a man's
life. It is true that the same kind of suffering is still
found in the labouring classes, which is some proof
that it belongs to the female mind independent of
circumstances; but it must be remembered that needle-
work is the great occupation of women in those classes,
and the fact of stitching for bread instead of for
amusement, will not do away with the bad mental
effect of having the fingers only employed while the
mind is vacant, and while the limbs are fatigued, not
from healthy exercise, but from remaining in one
position.
A retired, and in great measure a sedentary life, is
however unavoidable for women; let us then, at least
during their education, bear this fact in mind, and
provide physically and mentally as well as we can
against its possible evil effects.
It is truly singular, considering the anxious tender-
ness of mothers, to what a painful degree the question
of health generally is neglected in the education of
girls. When evil becomes apparent, then indeed, there
is no lack of solicitude; but if it come in an unusual
form, if it creep on by very slow degrees, or attack
mind or disposition before the body suffers, it is too
apt to be passed blindly over. At any rate the ques-
tion of health is not taken into account as one of
paramount importance in settling all the details of
life. It is not sufficiently remembered that with
delicate organizations, everything that interferes with
WANT OF RELAXATION.
167
bodily health or with the free development of the
physical powers reacts upon the mind, affecting the
brain or the temper, according to circumstances; while
everything that either jades or irritates the mind tells
injuriously upon health. Now, as education is neces-
sarily in some measure a system of artificial stimulus
to, and of artificial restraint upon the natural inclina-
tions, we cannot be too careful to watch and guard
against evil effects, and to give free course to nature,
wherever it is possible, in compensation for the restraint
we are forced to put upon her in other respects.
Confinement to the school-room is generally much
too long, and girls being continually on their good
behaviour under the eye of the governess, and made to
sit upright all the time of their lessons, do not get the
relief which boys may find, who, though nominally in
school as many hours, are left more to themselves, are
idle part of the time, and loll about in any position
that gives them rest. When lessons are over, they are
at liberty to take as much or as little exercise as they
please. The natural impulse is for action; when there-
fore the young creature prefers quiet while fun and
games are going on around, we may be sure that there
is a degree of languor and lassitude which requires
repose. But girls, weary or not, take their formal walk,
and even if the limbs get sufficient exercise and no
more, the brain and spirits do not get the combined
rest and exhilaration which boys find in their games of
strength and skill. The walk is often, indeed, made
another lesson, by enforcing the necessity of keeping
up conversation in some foreign and scarcely familiar
tongue with the governess, to whom the process must
be fully as dull and as unfit a preparation for after-work
as it is to her pupil. Boys have another healthy
168
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
In a
antidote against possible over-work at school, in the
freedom and idleness of the holidays, a boon generally
denied to girls who are brought up at home.
word, there is seldom any period of complete relaxation
during the usual course of girls' education, they are
incessantly being taught, or lectured, or advised, or
watched. When we add to this the wretched custom
of wearing stays, which still outlives back-boards and
narrow upright chairs, and by which the figure is
confined and distorted, while the muscles lose strength
by the habit of artificial support; if we put all these
things together we must allow that they go far to
justify the sarcastic remark of a medical writer, who,
in speaking of the naturally healthy constitutions of
girls, says 'their one disease is education.'*
Even the stricter moral discipline of female educa-
tion involves a degree of restraint which may tell in-
juriously upon some delicate nerves. Take the case of
violence for instance: when boys have had a pitched
battle or in any other open way have vented the ill-
temper of the moment, Nature has had relief after her
own fashion.
A fashion not to be encouraged certainly,
but let us at least remember while obliged frequently
to thwart the natural impulse, that in doing so we exact
severe effort which in return demands forbearance at
our hands, lest the still feeble powers should be over-
tasked. In time the habit of control, together with
the cultivation of the benevolent affections, will prevent
the angry emotions from rising, and then the physical
struggle is at an end. The peevish, fretful tempers
which are more common among girls than among boys
are I believe caused, in great measure, by want of atten-
* Philosophy of Living. HERBERT MAYO. Page 114.
CHEERFULNESS FAVOURS HEALTH.
169
tion to these points, by not giving nature all the help
and soothing we can, when taxing her powers and re-
pressing her natural inclinations. In the case mentioned
above, when boys have finished their battle they are
generally good friends again, but the girl who has been
forced to smother all resentment and preserve outward
good behaviour, is far more likely to cherish inward
rancour or discontent; then again the sullen or peevish
fit must also be concealed, and a depressed state of
spirits is too often the consequence. From this it
follows that the moral discipline being indispensable, it
is most incumbent on the teacher to watch lest the
efforts which are breaking down evil in one direction
should be fostering it in another. They should remem-
ber that peevishness, fretfulness, smothered irritability,
besides being in a moral point of view scarcely less ob-
noxious than violence, tend to depress the spirits, and
that every form of depression is more or less inimical
to health. On the other hand it is cheering to reflect
that when moral discipline has accomplished its work
and created habitual self-regulation, health derives no
small benefit from the serenity of mind that accom-
panies it. The absence not only of irritation and angry
emotion but of uncertain impulse and wavering motives
is no less favourable to a healthy condition of the
nerves and of the great organs of the body than to the
free development and action of the mental faculties.
I have already spoken at length of cheerfulness as one
of the most important features of character to be cul-
tivated as the antagonist to many forms of ill-temper,
I will only add here that it is no less essential to
bodily than to mental health. Even illness, even severe
and protracted pain, seem to lose some of their power
over the frame when the mind is able to preserve an
170
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
equable tone of spirits; and many forms of lesser
suffering are actually kept down by cheerfulness. The
nerves remain free from irritation; there is none of the
agitation that is kept up when sad recollections and
gloomy forebodings alternately sway the mind. The
spirit is at rest and the calm spreads to the bodily
organization.
All these considerations of health and of the action
and reaction upon each other of the mental and phy-
sical constitution deserve the mother's earnest thought
from her children's earliest years, but still more during
that period immediately succeeding childhood which I
propose studying in the following pages. Many childish
defects as well as childish illnesses are then over, and
moral training should already have made considerable
progress, but then a new class of difficulties present
themselves, and ignorance and want of observation in
the teacher may allow that which should be mere tem-
porary disturbance to produce permanent evil.
At that time growth is often rapid and out of pro-
portion to the strength, health in some cases remains
uncertain for a considerable period, and new faults we
were not prepared for seem to spring up to baffle us
just as we were rejoicing over the success of our earlier
task. A new phase of existence in short is opening,
and the intellectual and moral nature share in the dis-
turbance of the physical constitution. The eager and
volatile will then sometimes grow languid in body and
mind, even to depression. The quiet and cheerful
become subject to irritability which if not watched
might settle into peevishness of temper. The dull and
unimaginative awaken to greater quickness and suscep-
tibility which may but too easily degenerate into that
morbid sensibility which has poisoned the happiness of
EXCITED IMAGINATION.
171
so many women; and in the highest toned natures
there is a fearful increase of sensibility to every touch
of feeling or fancy as youth unfolds. There is a para-
dise of beauty then to imaginative minds over which the
second dawn of life steals with its magic light, bringing
to view a thousand fairy forms and rainbow tints which
the veiled eyes of the child could not perceive. Deep
in the soul that ideal beauty had lain folded up, at
times only a glimpse may have been revealed, while the
unconscious fancy hovered over some image it could but
dimly discern, then slept again till all the slumbering
powers of nature awake at once and a glory is shed over
Earth and Heaven.
It needs a delicate hand to deal with young creatures
under the influence of this new excitement, and health
of mind is as easily to be wrecked at such a time for
want of care as that of the body. The quiet secluded
life of girls favours the morbid action of feeling or
imagination, accordingly we find that a dreamy languor
alternating with fits of excitement and ecstatic delight is
a common feature at that age, and may easily turn to
evil if injudiciously treated. Some persons think they
arrest a tendency to morbid sentiment or imagination
by checking all expression of what they call romance,
forgetting that the highly coloured visions of fancy or
of an over-wrought sensibility are far more likely to
be softened and sobered in tone if expressed in words,
than if dwelt upon in solitary musings. There should
be nothing to chill, not a shade of ridicule, or all hope
of confidence, and therefore of influence, is lost. So
long as the latter is preserved it is both easier and
safer to guide than to repress; the mind may be gently
turned from day-dreams to the region of fine poetry or
of art, or to the contemplation of nature in her beauty
172
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
or the grandeur of her laws; while at the same time
studies may receive a new direction towards subjects
fitted to draw out the power of reasoning, and thus to
counteract the over activity of the imagination.
I have said above that when considerations of health
dictate unusual forbearance with a naughty child,
pains should be taken to conceal it. This precaution
is necessary because the little thing could not be made
to understand the reasons by which we are actuated,
and might try to conquer indulgence by simulating the
mood that had obtained it before. But when child-
hood is past, quite another method must be adopted.
The reasons that influence the teacher in dealing with
a young girl must be explained to herself, for she
would quickly detect mystery or concealment, or lose
some portion of confidence and respect if she suspected
inconsistency.
.
If the moral tone, or the power of mental exertion
appear to be affected by health, let it be frankly avowed,
and let the treatment be as gentle as it is decided,
while striving to rouse in the young mind the spirit of
resistance to the dominion of physical sensation, and a
sense of shame in relinquishing the great distinctive
gift of humanity, the power of self-regulation, at the
prompting of bodily infirmity. We too well know that
this can never be fully carried into effect, but few can
tell who have never tried it what a principle of mental
vigour this feeling will maintain through years of de-
pressing health. The young girl should be allowed to
know that we consider her irritability or foolish sen-
sitiveness as occasioned in great measure by delicacy of
health, while we hold it to be altogether in her own
power to prevent an accidental fault from becoming
fixed in the character. Let her learn how sadly often
THE WHOLE NATURE TO BE STUDIED. 173
amiable dispositions have suffered in this manner, and
how women with whom delicate health is one of the
most frequent trials of life, labour under a peculiar
necessity of learning to bear up against the deterio-
rating effects which it is ever tending to produce on
the mind. This is a very fitting time to begin to lead
the young girl to consider some of woman's special
duties and trials, and to understand some of the means
adopted in the course of her own education to strengthen
her for the peculiar mode of life which lies before her.
This openness will, with any well-constituted nature,
win confidence, at the very age when it is most essential
to possess it; while the feeling of being trusted gives
to the young both strength and self-reliance.
I trust that these few remarks on a subject so vast
as that of the mutual influence upon each other of
health, character, and mental development may have
some effect in turning attention more earnestly to these
points as essential considerations in education; that
they may convince some mothers that it is their chil-
dren's whole nature which they are bound to study,
one part in combination with the others, in order to see
where efforts are needed to maintain or restore that
harmony of all the powers which is the true type of
mental and physical health. Truly may they rest as-
sured that evil allowed to grow unchecked in one direc-
tion will not stop in its progress there. Neglected
health will enfeeble mental vigour; neglected symptoms
of mental deficiency will gain strength and perhaps over-
turn the whole balance of mind and power of self-
regulation, as certainly as neglected moral evil would
blight the fairest hopes that intellect and bodily health
could give of a happy and honoured career.
174
CHAPTER IV.
I
EARLY TEACHING.
HAVE already stated that it is not my intention to
enter upon the subject of early education. The
management of little children requires a quite peculiar
study and much experience, and I leave those to treat
of it who are so qualified. Yet it seems necessary, in
order that my readers may understand what point I
start from, to explain briefly the very little I expect
a child to have learnt before twelve years old, the age
at which my remarks on education begin to apply.
Many persons will perhaps think it strange that I
should include the whole period till twelve years of
age under the denomination of early childhood, not
yet to be subjected to a regular system of school-
room education. It is more common to find mothers
anxious about what their children know or can per-
form, at eight or nine, or too often earlier still, and
seriously considering twelve years old as an age when
real progress in many branches of study should have
been accomplished. In my opinion such progress is not
only impossible in most cases, but undesirable in all.
It is a crying sin against childhood to cut short its
careless, healthy idleness, to substitute books for play,
the forcing of the tender brain for the free develop-
ment of bodily strength in exercise, the weariness of
lessons for the spontaneous development of the mental
FOLLY OF WORKING THE CHILDISH BRAIN. 175
faculties among visible objects, and the many relations
of persons and things that are daily unfolding to the
child. Nothing is to me so absurd as to see a baby of
four or five years old gravely set down to a lesson; and
the sight of such a creature immured in a school-room
adds sadness to the absurdity. It is not sufficiently
considered how much a child inevitably learns in the
first few years of its feeble life. The slender powers
are probably taxed quite as much as is good for
them by the daily efforts of apprehension and memory
which must be made before the power of expressing
even a child's thoughts, feelings, and wants in
intelligible language and coherent sentences can be
attained. Experience is exercised, the senses undergo
constant training, the names of a vast number of
objects are learned, with many facts concerning them,
relations begin to be perceived, sensations to be dis-
tinguished, recollections to be stored, and anticipations
for the morrow to be formed. If we conceive how
much all the nascent powers are thus unavoidably
exercised we shall surely feel that it is wise to let
the gradual development of nature take place according
to nature's laws, without risking by premature forcing
in one direction to stunt the growth in another.
Rousseau's greatest claim to be forgiven the mischief
of many of his writings lies in his strenuous oppo-
sition to early teaching. Had his entire system of
education been practicable, it would have ended in a
miserable caricature of human nature; but he deserves
the praise of being the first to raise a powerful pro-
test against the folly of working the infant brain.
Every writer who deserves to be an authority on these
subjects, whether in physiological works or treatises on
education, has since him held the same opinion, and it
176
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
is so far established that no one ventures to profess
the contrary view, though it is daily acted upon by
the impatience or vanity of parents. They agree in
the mischief done by early cramming, but they will not
allow that the lessons their children learn can come
under that denomination. Early prodigies are still
boasted of, the precocity which already threatens health
is stimulated, and because the forward child is not un-
happy under this system, they believe he is not injured;
while it is urged, with regard to duller children, that
they do very little all the time.
To this plea there are two answers. First, that
spending a long time doing very little, is one of the
worst lessons that can be given; it is laying the foun-
dation of a bad mental habit, which it will be most
difficult to correct when real study begins. Ten
minutes' teaching that requires earnest attention from
the child is better in every way than an hour spent in
dawdling over a lesson. One of the most valuable
habits to which a child can be trained, and one of most
constant use, is to do quickly and with determination
whatever must be done; it is evident that hanging
with half attention over a lesson during twice the time it
really requires is in exact contradiction to this valuable
rule.
Secondly, we may answer, that although during the
hours spent in the school-room the brain be not over-
worked, the physical frame is at least deprived of the
advantage of all the exercise of limbs and lungs which
children would take if left to themselves during those
hours which they are forced to spend in unnatural
quiet.
But while baby-lessons are a sad spectacle, it is
possible to give a child certain elementary instruction
NO LESSONS TILL SEVEN YEARS OLD. 177
without its ever feeling the irksomeness of being
taught. Thus a child may learn to read without
knowing how, and that is undoubtedly an important
step gained, not so much with a view to lessons as to
giving the child a power of quiet amusement, by which
means the time and nerves of those around him are
greatly spared. But even this should be subject to
the condition that the child has no repugnance to what
is presented to it, half in fun, half in earnest. If
there is no taste for the game of searching out first
letters, and then words, and no wish to read the expla-
nation of the pictures in his book, it is better left
alone. There should be no compulsory lesson before
seven years old at soonest, and then I would carry the
compulsion no further than to exact an equal time of
complete stillness and silence as the alternative for
not doing the lesson. The latter will generally be
preferred; and once the habit given of attending
regularly to the same thing at the same hour, a step
nearly of equal importance with learning to read has
been gained. Even should the lesson be decidedly
rejected, the penalty enforced will not be without its
use in helping to form notions of submission to rules
of order and self-control. When a child shows this
decided aversion to lessons, it is easy to make him
bear the penalty of his idleness in another way also,
by refusing to read to him the amusing stories he will
not read for himself. It may be explained to him that
it was very well when he was too young to learn to
read that he should trouble other people, but that now
he is able to learn if he chooses their time cannot be
given up to gratify his idle whims.
When the child can read, the fear is lest advantage
should be taken of it to impose fresh lessons upon him,
N
178
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
to task memory and attention with dry matter-of-fact
that can have no interest for him. It were better to
teach orally any little things it is desirable that he
should know, and to leave the newly acquired art of
reading for pleasure only, till the habit of finding
delight in books is well established in the young mind.
There are some who do not seem capable of acquiring
that invaluable habit, but the point is seldom fairly
tried; when the brain is forced over lesson books, and
attention tired, the natural relief is in noise and idle-
ness, and thus the association of pleasure it should be.
the educator's endeavour to entwine with the habit of
reading is connected with the escape from it. Let the
little creature sit on the carpet with its stories of dogs
or birds, or book of fairy tales, devouring new wonders,
going back to the old with fresh delight at every call
upon his imagination. Leave him to grow absorbed in
the interest which makes his cheeks flush and his eyes
sparkle. Let him have in all its fulness the first taste
of the most elevating pleasures human nature is capable
of enjoying-those pleasures which are wholly apart
from the world of sense. After having owed such
keen delight to imagination aided by books, he will
be more likely to rise hereafter to the region of poetry
or of lofty speculation on nature's truths, that most
sublime field in which imagination works, than if his
young faculties had been wearied plodding over cate-
chisms of the ologies, bringing just within range of his
memory what remains a dead letter to his understand-
ing and fancy.
Fairy tales have fallen so sadly under the ban of
educational censure that they would require a longer
apology than I have space for to reinstate them in
favour. In my opinion it is at once a false view
FAIRY TALES.
179
of fiction, and a narrow view of truth which would
force children away from those pleasant old paths ´ to
dwell in dull realities for ever.' I believe fairy tales
afford a far more healthy form of amusement to children
than most of the stories of so-called real life that our
modern libraries teem with. Those wonderfully good
or clever little boys and girls who instruct and reform
their parents; or those young reprobates held up as
patterns of corruption for doing the mischief which
most children have a sympathy with, and yet cannot
feel themselves to be so very wicked for loving; these
are what really teach untruths, for they give false
notions of actual life, and lead to false expectation and
estimation of character. Like novels which I had
occasion formerly* to contrast with the reading of
elevated fiction in poetry, they have all the evil of
fiction unredeemed by that exercise of the fancy which
more imaginative works afford.
That there are exceptions to this general censure
need hardly be said, Miss Edgeworth's stories and the
charming series by Miss Martineau which has but one
fault-that of being too short-must always remain
models for children's books. There may be others
with which I am not acquainted, and there are books
of a different class in the present day which are open
to none of the above objections, works which bring
before children's minds facts of natural history, explana-
tions of common things in so attractive a form that
they learn to take delight in that world of marvels
which observation discloses in every road-side hedge, in
every sandy beach, and even in town shops collecting
the productions of every clime in one spot.
* Thoughts on Self-Culture, p. 335. Second edition.
N 2
180
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
But admitting these exceptions I am still convinced
in general that wild poetical tales of romance or
fairyland afford the most free and healthy scope for a
child's fancy to unfold in, and open the surest way of
leading him to turn to books for pleasure. There is no
fear of his being misled by the poetic fiction of the
talking of birds or trees, nor by the beautiful visions of
magic transformations, nor by the account of good or
wicked fairies dealing poetical justice among the guilty
and the sufferers in a world which he very clearly sees
is not our own. The child could not express in words
his sense of pleasure in being thus transported into a
different region; but we who have chafed longer within
the bounds of what we can see and know, and beat our
wings so often against the bars of the prison-house, we
know how the human soul pants after the ideal and
soars away to it as to a more genial clime. Why then
should we deny to children the first feeble efforts of a
faculty which will more than any other refresh the
flagging spirit through the weariness of later years.
There is no sense or justice in depriving children of
such imaginative reading as comes within their com-
prehension, unless we would afterwards on the same
principles take out of their hands not only every
beautiful heirloom of genius which has made the
poetical mythology of Greece familiar to us, but
Spencer and Milton, Dante and Shakspeare, to replace
them in their hours of amusement by fashionable novels
or gossiping biographies. We may dread to see a child
too prosaic, but need fear nothing from his imagination.
Let it be watched and carefully tended and directed,
but let us not forget that the creative power of the
human mind is there.
From fairy tales the child will naturally proceed to
INTELLIGENCE AND FEELING ROUSED. 181
tales of adventure, to poetry, old ballads and legends
awakening the first dawn of historical interest; then to
travels and lives of great men. Once within the
bounds of real life, of what appeals in some measure to
his own knowledge and experience, he will generally
be the better pleased the more of actual truth there is
in what he reads. Is it really true?' will be the
frequent question, as the spirit stirs within him at
the account of heroic deeds, of the self-devotion of
martyrs, of the courage of affection. His imagination
and feeling lift him to the height of actions whose
motives he can scarcely understand. Such excitement
together with interest in the accounts of far distant
lands, of wonderful natural productions, the strange
history of the animals living around him or roaming
afar in those forests and spreading wilds whose descrip-
tion he has delighted in, will take the place of the
marvels of fairy-land. It is thus that the love of
reading allowed to develope itself naturally will lead on
a child of any intelligence step by step till the time
comes to employ that intelligence in serious study. It
is said that some children dislike pure fiction, that
their interest is never roused except by something true
and real. If so, the peculiarity requires some watching
before we pronounce it to be a virtue. I should be
inclined to suspect it was caused by incapacity to rise
to a fanciful conception, by coldness or inertness of
imagination, which would require therefore to be
counteracted rather than to be encouraged still more
by being kept within bounds of the commonplace
it sympathises with. I should fear that such a child
would show less interest in the heroic than in the
homely, and might respond as slowly to a lofty senti-
ment as to an imaginative thought. I do not say that
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
it would always be so; in the great variety of mental
constitutions there may be some so happily framed as
to have by nature all the qualities of a warm imagina-
tion with the calmness and sobriety which usually
belong to a colder and more prosaic turn of mind. But
these must be rare; and the absence of interest in fiction
would not alone indicate to me a more favourable
mental condition in the child.
I have said that seven years old is the earliest period
at which regular teaching should begin. After that
half-an-hour every day may fairly be exacted, and an
increase of half-an-hour each year till twelve years old
will be borne without fatigue by any children in good
health. Other matters requiring care and order but
not trying to the brain may be attended to in addition.
To make my meaning clear I will briefly enumerate
what acquirements I should expect to find in a girl of
twelve years old. She should read and spell English
perfectly, write a neat hand and be able to write a clear
and simple letter. I should expect her to know an
outline of Bible History and of the spread of Chris-
tianity, and to be well acquainted with the four Gospels;
she might know also something of the leading events of
ancient and modern history, gathered from a mere
skeleton narrative, aided by reading the lives of great
men and perhaps committing some principal dates
well grouped to memory.* In the same manner she
should have some slight notion of geography, partly
* The only object of even such acquaintance with history at that age
is to render intelligible the biographies and the poetry the child may
read. Also in reading travels it is well that she should have some
notion of the past history of the different countries, at least to the
extent of knowing if they were early civilized or not, whether powerful
or subject, &c.
FACILITY FOR LEARNING LANGUAGES.
183
learnt as a lesson, but in greater measure by following
upon maps the travels I suppose her to read for her own
amusement. I should wish her memory to be well
stored with such poetry as she is able to take pleasure
in, never having learned a piece unless it has first ex-
cited her own interest. If this rule be followed there
is no need to trouble ourselves about what can or can-
not be appreciated at a given age. Some children have
delighted in the Psalms, some in heroic ballads, some
in Shakspeare and some even in the versified eloquence
of Racine or Corneille; while others of the same age
could hardly feel the beauty of a fable or of the
simplest hymn. There is no gauge for the fancy or
intellect, the only safe rule is to leave them free, and
try their powers.
I should expect to find my little pupil familiar with
the four first rules of arithmetic and doing sums neatly
and quickly. I believe the method of mental arith-
metic now taught in schools is also an excellent exercise
of the mind and memory, and one which many children
take pleasure in. I should also expect if circumstances
have allowed it that she should read and speak French
or German, or both. This is the one form of know-
ledge that is more easily acquired by little children than
by older persons; they learn different languages by ear
without pain or effort, and thereby save much valuable
time hereafter, which would otherwise be spent over
dictionaries, in learning words when the time has come.
for learning things. If parents, therefore, are not re-
stricted by considerations of expense, I shall say that the
best plan would be as follows:—A Swiss bonne at three
or four years old to be in constant attendance on the
children; and at nine a German governess, sufficiently
familiar with French to keep that up, while teaching her
184
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
own language. Thus by the time a girl is twelve years
old, she would speak and write two of the most difficult
languages of Europe with as much ease as her own.
There is one other acquirement I should wish to
find in my pupil, and that is some knowledge of music.
I am aware that after all I have said against the undue
importance attached to accomplishments this will sound
inconsistent; but I hope to prove that it is not really
So. My objection to accomplishments is to their
being allowed to usurp a place among the essentials of
education and among the serious pursuits of life. But
I have too true a value for the fine arts themselves as a
source of pure pleasure, as a solace in hours of sadness
or solitude, as a means of cultivating some of the fine
qualities of the imagination, and I rate their social
influence too highly, not to desire that a reasonable
time should be given to cultivate any real talent for
them, or to gratify any real desire to learn them; only
remembering to keep them in due subordination to the
proper labour of education.
My reason for beginning music at an early age is
this. The taste for it is often not shown till very late,
frequently not till the voice developes, and singing offers
a charm which was wanting in instrumental music.
But to begin the rudiments at that age is painful
labour, and still more painful waste of time, for there
is rarely then an hour to spare; yet without much
time and hard labour none will overcome the difficulties
of music thus encountered all at once, and vocal and
instrumental together. And after all success would
be very doubtful, for the mere necessary manual sup-
pleness and dexterity are very difficult to acquire when
the muscles have lost the pliancy of childhood. I
would obviate these difficulties by making them familiar
MUSIC-NEEDLEWORK.
185
in early years. Then if at fourteen or fifteen, a decided
taste for music shows itself, real study begins from a
favourable point. If on the contrary there be no wish
to cultivate the art, the time hitherto devoted to it-
and which should never exceed half-an-hour in the day
-can be given to something else, and yet leave no
regret for labour wasted; since I believe it hardly pos-
sible to find a study which is more adapted than music
to train a child's memory, attention, patience and
quickness of apprehension. So many things have to
be learned at once, or at least combined as soon as
learned, that it affords an exercise different in some
measure from any other subject in which a child could
be instructed. Nor is the manual dexterity thus ac-
quired without its value. Persons who are accustomed
to use their fingers in any delicate operation, especially
if requiring strength as well as delicacy, become skilful
also in other things and light of hand: a woman should
be both.
Among manual arts there is one which no woman
can be without, and which must be early taught that it
may not take up time when time is more valuable than
it is in childhood. A girl of twelve should already be a
proficient in all plain needlework and do it rapidly and
neatly. The latter is of course indispensable, but the
former also is valuable and easily acquired. Quick-
ness and carelessness have been too often classed to-
gether, whereas carelessness is often most conspicuous
in the slowness that dawdles for an hour over a task,
or over business of any kind which an habitually quick
person will perform with more ease in half the time.
The person who has formed that habit from a sense of
its value in saving time, will be the first to feel that
slurring over work is the slowest thing that can be
186
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
done, since it will generally require to be done again
or to have blunders repaired; but the constant desire
to work quickly, induces the habit of thinking rapidly
upon all practical matters, of seeing the important
points and their bearings and deciding what is best to
be done. By excluding dawdling we exclude much
space for hesitation and half-measures and half-repent-
ings. Irresolution and uncertainty proceed indeed from
other causes besides this; in some fine and acute minds
they spring from the habit of looking too deep and too
far into cause and consequences, viewing everything on
every side till they are unable to make that rough guess
at probabilities which after all we are obliged to be con-
tent with in most practical affairs; but with the majority
of persons the defect would be lessened at any rate in
small matters, or checked in its operation, if they had
been trained from childhood to be quick in whatever
they have to do.
To return however to needlework; there is in general
no difficulty in making little girls fond of it. Their
dolls offer the first inducement, and then comes in the
pleasure of giving their work to others, perhaps the
only gift in their power or the only service they are
able to render. But whichever way inclination points
needlework must be taught. It is one of the most im-
portant branches of household occupation, unfortunately
so neglected in modern English education; and it will
always be in the mother's power to prevent this necessary
accomplishment from degenerating into the frivolity of
constant fancy-work in which so many precious hours.
are wasted by girls who could not stitch a shirt or make
their own clothes.
According to my plan children would have very little
brain work, and some people might think that two
EDUCATION WITHOUT LESSONS.
187
hours and a half only of lessons from eleven to twelve
years old will leave my pupils idle and difficult to bring
in later to the habits of a regular school-room life; but
needlework and other household occupations, that a
child can learn to attend to, may be made as much use
of as any grammar lesson as a means of enforcing
system, patience, and perseverance. The effect will
entirely depend on the manner in which this homely
training is carried on.
A little girl may be told for instance that when she
is nine years old she shall, if she seem fit to be trusted,
have the charge of her own clothes, to mend and put
neatly away, and by which means the first notions of
order and economy are introduced. Her tenth birth-
day might entitle her as a great privilege to the charge
of some younger child's things, or perhaps to some por-
tion of her mother's, or of the house linen, or she may
be trusted with stores subject to the condition of care-
fully weighing what is given out, and entering it
accurately and neatly in a book. These and many
other things of like nature may be made objects of
interest and ambition to the young creature-not from
the interest of the occupations themselves but from the
sense of being trusted and useful. Once undertaken,
however, the charge becomes a duty, and as such never
even in its most trifling details to be willingly neglected.
Thus we may lay the first foundation of one of the
most important principles of life; that of considering
our own resolutions—seriously and deliberately made—
as sacred to our own conscience, not to be judged of
according to the intrinsic value of the things concerned,
but according to the motives that led us to form the
resolve, and to the value of our own self-respect which
wavering and inconsistency must and ought to impair.
188
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
If we desire that seemingly trifling occupations should
be the means of conveying such serious lessons to a
child's mind, they must of course not be treated as
trifles; indeed nothing that serves a purpose of useful-
ness to others, or conduces to their comfort or welfare in
any degree, should ever be allowed with children to be
so treated. The hour for attending to duties of this
kind must be fixed, as well as the mode in which it
seems best that the thing should be done, and no
capricious change or irregularity allowed. These will
however probably occur, and at first may be passed over
with a gentle reprimand, acknowledging the difficulty
of getting into new ways, and how hard even grown up
people find it to be quite regular in their occupations;
but if neglect is repeated or becomes frequent the trust
should be withdrawn for a time. The punishment of
mortification in feeling that she is considered unfit for
a charge of any consequence, will have more effect in
general on the child's mind than merely enforcing the
punctual discharge of the duty.
Another valuable quality is also trained among these
common things, in preparation for more difficult exer-
cise when serious study begins. This is patience; a
virtue which deserves a higher place than it holds in
most views of education. It is remarkable that women
who possess so much of what I would call moral patience,
that is of the kind which bears crosses and disappoint-
ments with good humour, and can endure all the trials
of a nursery or sick-room, are eminently defective in
intellectual patience. They are in general soon wearied
with the persevering effort required for severe mental
labour, or with the drudgery indispensable as an accom-
In conse-
paniment or preparation for such labour.
quence their attainments remain imperfect and below
PATIENCE IN STUDY.
189
the standard of their capacity. Their knowledge is not
accurate or complete and their reading is desultory.
Nothing great, nothing even tolerably good is to be
done without systematic perseverance, and few things
require so much patience as that unswerving regularity
in all the details of a plan, which method exacts. For
instance, while it is very pleasant to read, it is most
irksome to make regular notes from our reading, and
yet probably the profit derived from a book will very
much depend upon our method and regularity in making
such notes. So it is with other things which are
necessary to make reading anything more than a pleasing
way of passing time,-as for instance frequent reference.
to maps, dictionaries, or chronological tables, laborious
search in works of reference to clear up a difficulty or
to help to fix an important point on the memory.
these things are severe trials of patience, and of that
persevering spirit born of patience and earnestness
which is not to be daunted by obstacles, but works
steadily, though it may be slowly on, till they are removed
or overcome. The often tedious details of household
occupations are very fit to train this habit in a child,
and thus while the brain has been spared fatigue, no
idleness has been encouraged, and time has been turned
to the best account by leading the mind to work
habitually and among all the common things of life
according to those methods which will be most essential
for the labour of mental cultivation when intelligence
is ripe for it.
All
Here ends my list of the acquirements I should ex-
pect from a child of twelve years old, a mere skeleton
preparation for real study. It falls so far short of
what is deemed requisite by most mothers and gover-
nesses in the present day, that I should expect my
190
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
opinion to be more popular on the playground than in
the school-room. It is particularly important for girls
to be as little restricted as possible in play and exercise
during childhood, since it early becomes necessary to
I
impose on them restraints which boys never know.
would have them run, leap, ride, play various games
with their brothers, in short acquire strength and dex-
terity of limb, trusting rather for grace of movement to
the pliancy and vigour of a healthy active frame ani-
mated by a refined mind, than to a dancing master's
teaching.
But although my list of actual lessons is soon closed,
I should be glad to find in my little pupil more infor-
mation than her tasks have taught her; information of
various kinds sought out for herself, or gathered from
the conversation of her elders, which gives token of an
inquiring mind roused by the love of reading to take
keen interest in whatever it hears or sees.
Such a
child will know the history, if I may so call it, of all
the familiar things around her, that is what countries.
different productions come from, and the peculiarities of
climate or cultivation that make us seek them from
She will
afar and not strive to raise them at home.
know something of the principles of construction of
various objects she sees in frequent use, and something
of the elementary principles of science by the aid of
which other things familiar to her have been effected.
The revolutions of day and night and of the seasons
with their changes of temperature and of the external
appearances of nature-the striking phenomena of che-
mical forces that so frequently take place around us,
the interest of animal and vegetable life,-atmospheric
changes, the lightning and the winds, and above all
ESSENTIAL HABITS TO FORM.
191
the heavenly bodies in their movements and their beauty
which even a child of three years old has been known
to watch with rapture,-all these will rouse inquiry and
lead to instruction in the first principles of natural his-
tory and philosophy, which will stimulate the desire for
knowledge and train the habits of observation.
These things will be learned without labour, that is
without wearying the brain, for they will be learned with
pleasure under the stimulus of a desire to know. But
should it be found that the child has a mere idle curio-
sity about things, it may be well to disregard it, letting
her see that you cannot waste the labour of instruction
when there is no earnest intention of deriving profit
from it. In laying the foundation of intellectual educa-
tion in childhood we should be content with the humblest
beginnings; but whatever and whenever we teach we
cannot be too careful to ensure that all which is learned
shall exercise not the memory alone, important as that
is, but attention, perseverance, the faculty of observa-
tion, often acute in children, but seldom well-directed,
and the habit of accuracy. The latter must be culti-
vated not merely with regard to veracity but to form-
ing accurate and definite notions of things. That is a
child should see clearly as far as it sees at all, and be
aware when it ceases to have a clear conception. It
should know when it does not understand and have
learned to seek for help in overcoming the difficulty.
At the same time a child should also be aware that
many things cannot be made clear to it, and should be
satisfied when told 'I cannot explain this now, it is
beyond your comprehension, we will return to this when
you are able to follow the necessary explanation.'
foolish answer just putting off curiosity never can, and
192
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
never ought to satisfy an inquiring child; and the more
intelligent she is, the sooner she will learn to distrust
those who thus treat her honest desire to learn.
At twelve years old a child of moderate abilities is
fit to begin study in earnest. At first the period of
application should still be very short, lengthening it by
degrees as habit makes the labour of attention and
thought less irksome. Subjects can then be studied
in good works, not in those milk-and-water dilutions of
knowledge which give the skimmings of learning with-
out exercising one of the faculties whose exercise is
more precious than learning itself. The continual
attempt to reduce the Novum Organon to words of one
syllable will never give real knowledge to childish minds;
but it may keep minds which ought to be expanding
down to childish proportions. Study should be earnest
labour of attention, apprehension, and thought; when
the mind is capable of these efforts, let it begin with-
out any attempt at disguise; and not till then.
I have spoken in my last chapter of the earliest
religious impressions that a child's mind is capable of
receiving, but so large a number of persons think that
direct teaching of religious doctrines should hold a
prominent place in early education, and exercise the
strongest influence over its whole course, that I cannot
close this chapter without explaining my reasons for not
entering into that part of the subject at all.
The numerous and very wide differences of opinion
which prevail upon religious, and still more upon theo-
logical and ecclesiastical questions, make it impossible
to lay down the simplest general system of religious in-
struction without offending many, and probably raising
in the minds of those so offended, a prejudice against
every other opinion and principle advocated in the work.
INTOLERANCE.
193
Unfortunately, few even earnestly religious minds will
judge fairly on these points. Feeling is too strong, and
overpowers the truth and uprightness which they may
follow in the examination of other questions. Such
also is the unreasoning tenacity of bigotry that no one
opinion is judged apart or on its own merits, but a
notion is quickly taken up concerning the good or evil
of a whole system, and even of the character of those
who propound it, in proportion as they have chimed in
with, or shocked the feelings of the reader on these
particular points. Time is not given to examine the
moral tendencies of the entire system, or to judge them
apart from religious tenets; but it is concluded that an
author who believes or does not believe such or such
dogmas, or approve of such or such practices or institu-
tions, must be dangerous, and his work likely to lead
the unwary into error.
Such is the measure of charity with which different
sects and parties treat each other; so do the Evan-
gelical judge the High-Church, and the High-Church
the Evangelical; so does one section of Dissenters judge
another, while they all condemn and are condemned by
the Churchman; and Churchmen and Dissenters alike
join in suspecting or scorning the philosopher. Each
has his own unfailing standard of doctrine and prac-
tical truth, and whoever differs from them is not only
mistaken, but in dangerous and criminal error. They
differ indeed from the Roman Church on the subject
of infallibility, but only with regard to where it shall
be placed, and in what terms it shall be claimed.
It is inevitable that we should hold persons to be
in error when they differ from us in conclusions of the
truth of which we have satisfied ourselves. We cannot
believe that we are in the right without thinking our
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194
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
opponents are mistaken, without supposing them to
have reasoned ill, to have taken up wrong grounds, or
not to have sufficient capacity for seeing the force of
the objections against them. But when beyond this,
we go on to call their error morally wrong, and to
look upon them not as mistaken, but as criminal, then
we assume that our own views are the truth, clear and
obvious to all who do not wilfully shut their eyes to it,
implying therefore that it is in man's power to come to
certain conclusions if he but chooses to do so. These
are the fatal opinions which lie at the bottom of all
religious intolerance, whatever the form it may take,
from the suspicion with which men of different views
regard each other, to the bloody trophies of the In-
quisition. The difference is in the difference of power
and of the state of our civilization, not in the bigoted
spirit. If once we hold the moral merit or demerit
of opinions, persecution can be condemned only as in-
expedient. When such feelings and opinions then
are so prevalent, it must be vain to enter upon the
subject of religious education unless controversy were
the object, or unless a writer addressed himself solely
to his own sect or party. For one who, like myself,
wishes to build up a system of instruction without regard
to any party, the only safe method is to avoid, as far as
possible, all that may occasion my views to be prejudged
by those who might find that I attend a different church
or admire a different preacher from their own.
There are other reasons also which render it almost
useless as well as dangerous to enter upon the subject,
for even if we could hope to find tolerance towards
others, parents will certainly choose that their children
should hold the opinions they hold themselves. On
many subjects connected with education, and many
THEOLOGY NOT RELIGION.
195
studies I might recommend, I might hope to find no
settled opinion against me; many mothers will own that
they know little on these matters, and whether their
children are taught one branch of knowledge or another,
or learn from one author or another, is often a matter
of indifference. But not so with regard to religious
teaching. All alike hold some religious views and
some theological tenets, whether adopted upon exami-
nation and conviction, or upon authority and custom;
and these their children must share.
For all these reasons therefore I have decided to omit
religious instruction from my plan of study, leaving the
omission to be filled up in each family according to the
parents' wishes and views. My plan includes the week-
days only; Sunday is therefore left wholly free to be em-
ployed as may be thought fit, without interfering with
the studies I recommend; while any time daily appor-
tioned to the same subject must be a matter of home
arrangement. At the same time I cannot but enter
my protest against the ordinary methods of theological
teaching for children. The practical influence of true
religion will not flow from reading or catechism, either
on week-days or Sundays, but from the whole tenor of
the principles inculcated throughout the course of educa-
tion, and the capacity of the mind for feeling and loving
truth, and being governed by a sense of duty. It is
not alone among great churchmen of olden times, or
ecclesiastical writers in the days of their power, that we
see how far theologians may be from Christianity;
nor need we go back to history to learn that society
might have flourished upon Christian morals better than
upon the orthodoxy of the Gregories or the Innocents,
or even of Protestant churches. The same sad truth
is evident around us daily. Let children, then, at least,
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
first learn to live like Christians, before they are taught
to dispute like theologians.
A child has but feeble powers of reasoning, but it
will kindle to every lofty motive, and image and take
a sublime sentiment to its heart as some simple and
familiar thing. This is what we have to work upon in
religious education; let us address the faculties which
in the order of nature are developed first. God, the
source of life, seems to a child almost visible in his
glorious creation-God reading the heart of man, ever
present, ever to be found in prayer, is intelligible to
the young creature feeling its own helplessness, and
accustomed to look upon its parents as almost gifted
with that omnipotence he learns from them is the
attribute of a higher Being. Nor to him do the thoughts
of death come troubled with doubts or fears.
He may
shrink in physical terror from a mystery which casts
gloom and sorrow around, but mental terror belongs
not to childhood, unless implanted there by theological
teaching. Life is the natural portion of his inheritance,
and other worlds are clothed in his mind with forms as
familiar as those of his earthly home, only glorified
with the nearer presence of that invisible God he be-
lieves to dwell in the bright heavens above.
Such is religion to a child, when teaching has only
given a form and direction to the dim aspirations of
nature. And if it be said that it is like the religion of
barbarous nations, a mere sentiment, a vague aspira-
tion, the vision of the fancy governing the unreasoning
mind, I can only reply that savage nations are the
children of the world, and that in the infancy of reason
imagination must be all-powerful. I would add, how-
ever, that far better are these workings of the imagina-
tion allied to the pure sentiment of religion implanted
OPINION AND PREJUDICE.
197
in the heart of man, than the premature dogmatism of
minds still unfit to reason, or to understand the import
of what they are made to assert. Besides, the child's
religion such as I have described it does not remain a
mere sentiment, for on it his mother will early graft
the strong notion of duty and the sense of moral re-
sponsibility which she hopes to make the guides of his
life, and thus the moral action of religion is secured
long before the mind is capable of receiving doctrines
and opinions except as words to be committed to
memory. When reason has acquired strength, then
let it do its proper work; let it sift and judge and
reject, if it sees grounds for doing so, what before
approved itself to sentiment and imagination; but
assuredly it will work with all the more vigour and
security for not having been early cramped in the
fetters of prejudice, nor taught to confound truth and
falsehood by maintaining as its own, opinions accepted
at the bidding of others.
When I use the word prejudice as applied to such
subjects, I would not have it supposed that I am myself
prejudging the question, and using a term of contempt
as part of an argument. This indeed is not an uncom-
mon mode of meeting an adversary upon questions of this
nature, but it is not mine. I apply the word prejudice
to the theological doctrines supposed to be held by
children, just as I would apply it to any theories of
law, or medicine, or politics, which they might in like
manner have been taught to profess. The word opinion
belongs to what we have reasoned upon and worked out
for ourselves; no borrowed views, no notions taken up
without examination can fairly deserve any other name
but prejudice. All would agree in thinking it absurd
if a child should profess to belong to this or that school
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
of metaphysics, to be a follower of Locke or Hume or
Kant; but what is there more ridiculous in this than in
the same creature with its feeble reason and scanty
knowledge professing theological opinions which involve
questions of the deepest metaphysical subtlety, and
consequences before which the boldest metaphysician
will pause? The great difference between the two is
that in the latter case the absurdity is crowned with
intolerance; and what was mere folly when it related
to human speculation alone, becomes revolting in its
arrogance when it relates to God and to Eternity.
It does not follow from abstaining to teach children
theological tenets that they should not be brought up
in the profession of Christianity; for the latter contains,
by the avowal of all sects, a code of practical morals,
no less than a body of doctrines, and that which is
practical is comprehensible to the mind of a child as
far as it affects his own experience. We have seen
how the notion of duty and of obedience to conscience
is easily grafted on that religious sentiment which is
spontaneous in the human heart. Little by little the
child will see that each act that he feels or learns to
be right or wrong is brought under the sanction or
condemnation of religion. Later, these isolated points.
of childish morals can be shown to belong to one
great system, which we call Christianity; which, be-
sides many things still obscure to him, sets forth the
sublime example of the life of Christ,-holds out the
promise of immortality,-teaches the necessity of a
pure heart and life, and inculcates active love towards
our fellow-creatures, with simple trust in God, whose
works of power and goodness are all around us. Later
still, the teacher may point to the contrast between
Christian precepts and the teaching of heathen moralists,
BEAUTY OF CHRISTIANITY.
199
-between the moral condition both of civilized and un-
civilized heathen nations, and that to which Christianity
would lead us did we not so miserably fall short of the
aim and pattern it holds up to us. These things are
still within the range of the child's feelings and prac-
tical understanding. The grandeur of the doctrine of
One God, Creator and Preserver of the world, as con-
trasted with the polytheism of antiquity,—the sublime
conception of that presence in which we live and move
and have our being;'-the lofty hopes of immortality
chiming in with those yearning aspirations of the mind
which grow stronger as the sadness and the joys of life
become more intense,-these the young mind will grasp
and cling to; and truly it will thus be better prepared
when the time comes to give earnest attention to the
dogmas and opinions of Christian churches, than if re-
ligion had been blindly bound up with them from early
years.
At that time the course of study will be mostly
among works of reasoning and speculation; the nature
of opinion, the method of forming it, the caution
and accuracy and labour necessary to weigh evidence
and establish conclusions will be explained and en-
forced,*—and the mind thus strengthened and enlight-
ened may turn with fruit to the study of theological
opinions, to the examination of Christian evidences, to
the reading of Church history, in short to all that
serious consideration which a subject of such magni-
tude demands, and without which no person has any
reasonable grounds for belonging to this or that sect,
or for holding this or that doctrine. He may legi-
timately be content to hold them on authority, but he
* See chap. viii.
200
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
can have no power to judge the views of others, and no
right to maintain the truth of his own.
I am aware that there are difficulties in the mode of
religious training which I desire to substitute for that
of collects and catechisms. There must always be
greater difficulties in acting upon a consistent and phi-
losophical method than in following a blind routine.
They are however greatly increased by the common
feeling that makes parents shrink from avowing to a
child the existence of a doubt or a difficulty in religious
subjects; too many unfortunately are afraid of avowing
it to themselves. Yet the mother's task would be
much simplified if she had courage and candour to own
to her child that error and doubt clog the path of man
so long as he remains on earth; that while some
points will become clearer as his understanding acquires
greater power, it may happen that others on the con-
trary will become less clear, since the wider our in-
quiries, the more often must we expect that they will
reach that barrier set to our pursuit of truth by the
weakness of our faculties and the littleness of our
sphere compared with the unknown vastness of the
universe. Laws of which we catch only a confused
glimpse, may be working in clear and simple grandeur
beyond our mortal ken. The contradictions that baffle
us, the mysteries that make reason dizzy as it vainly
seeks to fathom them, all may be full of harmony and
beauty, one great purpose of goodness the end of all,
—while the error and the confusion and the darkness
are only in our dim perceptions. Truth, certain and
unalterable, may be written in characters of light to
higher intelligences, while we, still hemmed in by this
'muddy vesture of decay,' are unable to discern it.
Views such as these, which take from the existence
of doubt its bitterness and its terror, can little by little
DOUBT INEVITABLE.
201
be unfolded to the young mind, and will appeal to it
with great force, accustomed as it is to see that many
things which to the child are dark and evil, seem good
and seasonable to his superiors in knowledge. He has
been told from his earliest days that the reason for the
blind obedience exacted of him now would become plain
to him, when he had more experience and understand-
ing; it will not therefore when put in that manner
seem strange to him that the works and purposes of the
Creator should in many things appear utterly dark to
His ignorant creatures. This admission of doubt as a
condition of human life excludes the dogmatism of in-
fallibility, while it saves the mind from the danger of
fancying there is no truth because we cannot see it,
from believing that the foundations of the world are
unstable because we are tossed up and down in our little
barque, and that to our disturbed vision the mountain-
tops seem to reel and the fixed stars to forsake their
spheres.
There will be no difficulty with regard to the exter-
nal observances in which parents naturally desire that
their children should follow their example. The cus-
tom of public worship appeals strongly to the imagina-
tion, and if it has not been made wearisome to a child
he easily enters into the feeling which prompts human
beings-whether in suffering, in hope, or in ignorant
waiting upon the will of a superior being-to give one
voice to their common sentiment of trust and praise
and love. The nature of his ideas of worship and of
the answer he may expect God will make to prayer, will
depend of course on the views held by his mother on
these points. And so also with the observance of Sun-
day and other things connected with religious opinion.
The freedom from dogma, in which I am supposing him
to be educated, will prevent the condemnation of any
202
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
views held by others, since condemnation is the expres-
sion of a decided opinion, and that is what the child
should be carefully taught to feel that he is unfit to
assert.
There are persons who hasten to instruct their
children in doctrines lest death should overtake them
and they perish everlastingly, because their theological
education was cut short. I confess I do not hope to
convince them. I can only grieve that there should be
parents professing Christianity who hold opinions so
fitted for the worship of Moloch. When we think that
such a miserable superstition has wrung the hearts of
mothers as they bent over the death-bed of a child with
an agony in which all sense of their own bereavement
was lost, our anger is turned against those whose teach-
ing has made such victims. I know no method of
reasoning with them. As well might I attempt to
argue upon truth with a Jesuit, upon murder with a
Thug. We have no common ground to proceed from.
The very conception of a God upon which such fears
are founded, is so repugnant to every feeling of my
nature, to every conviction of my understanding, that
could it be proved true, it would be to me Atheism in
its most desolating aspect. Since it would bring the
conviction that poor and feeble as are our own con-
ceptions of truth and justice and goodness, they far
transcend what we are to expect in the dealings of
the Almighty; that Omnipotence, in a word, was but
another name for malignity such as never yet has dis-
Thanks be
graced human nature in its worst forms.
to the handwriting of God in our hearts which makes
such a belief once fairly stated too revolting a contra-
diction to disturb us even with a doubt.
203
CHAPTER V.
STUDIES AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT FROM TWELVE
YEARS OF AGE TO FOURTEEN.
SECTION 1.-In the two first chapters of this work I
endeavoured to lay down the fundamental principles
of education in general, to point out their special
application to the education of women, and to sketch
the plan of study which appears to me the most likely
to effect what those principles require. Next we have
glanced at certain points of moral training and of health
as influencing, and influenced by, moral and intellectual
peculiarities; and lastly, have considered what the
teaching of childhood may fairly be expected to achieve,
without that premature forcing of the intellect which is
so unfortunately common. In the present chapter we
enter upon the serious work of education during those
six important years from twelve to eighteen; and the
first question that arises is, where and by whom that
education is to be conducted?
I should have wished here to enter at some length
into my reasons for considering that except under very
peculiar circumstances home education is alone fit for
girls; that many of the things which make school
training desirable for boys, are precisely what point
out its unfitness for those in whose future life ambition
and active worldly motives are to have no place. But
matter presses, and I am forced to pass over this impor-
204
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
tant subject. The system I propose is arranged with
a view to home life, and I shall assume therefore that
the mother has the real charge of the education, with
or without the assistance of a governess, according to
her means, position, and capacity for teaching.
We come then now to the consideration in detail of
the plan of study proposed in the second chapter. For
the sake of convenience, this part of the subject will be
divided into periods according to the age of the pupils ;
the present chapter comprising two years, from twelve
to fourteen, and each of the following ones an equal
period. This will bring us to eighteen years of age,
beyond which unfortunately we cannot reckon upon
any regular studies being carried on.
In making this division I do not, of course, suppose
that two years can be spent altogether in the same
manner; indeed the very progress expected implies
change. But some division must be made, and by
making it so as to mark tolerably long intervals, more
latitude is allowed for the different powers of children.
In the course of two years some will just accomplish
what is proposed; others though making more rapid
progress in a short time may be forced, owing to defec-
tive memory, to go often over the same ground; a few
may perhaps fall short altogether, and a few, on the
other hand, easily pass beyond. The more frequent
the division assumed, the more would all these differences
tell, and the more difficult therefore would it become
for the teacher to avail herself of the general rules.
which can alone be laid down in a work of this
kind.
In examining the plan of study which I have pro-
posed, we find that it falls into three principal divisions:
Science, Language, and History,-the first including a
EARLY RISING.
205
short course of mathematics; the second extending to
logic, literature, and composition; the third embracing
geography and chronology, and leading to some study
of ethical and political questions. The reading for each
different period will arrange itself easily under those
three heads; and with regard to the two years now
in consideration, the assigned portions of each division
will be: first, arithmetic, secondly, grammar, and
thirdly, short general histories, with the study of maps.
and chronological tables in order to obtain a clear con-
ception of those general outlines. At twelve years old,
three hours and a half of lessons may be easily borne,
and gradually increased to four hours. This, with the
usual needlework in addition, is amply sufficient till
fourteen. Let us now see how these hours should be
distributed.
The habit of early rising is so valuable that it can-
not be acquired too soon; especially as if not established
in youth, the exertion is often injurious to health.
None, perhaps, know the full value of the habit but
those whose days are at the mercy of claims and inter-
ruptions they cannot avoid, and in the midst of which
they struggle to carry on their own pursuits. Those
two or three precious hours secured before the turmoil
of the day begins, are perhaps all they can call their
own, and there is a calming effect in this peaceful,
solitary time which gives strength and cheerfulness to
meet the disquiet of succeeding hours. Now, as this
want of command over their own time is a common
trial with women, I consider it most important to give
a habit which will secure them against some of its ill
effects. I shall suppose, therefore, that children in
good health rise at six, and allowing half an hour for
dressing, that gives them two hours before their break-
206
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
fast at half-past eight;* half an hour of that time,
however, is all I should devote to lessons at the age we
are considering; the rest the children should dispose of
according to their own pleasure. This freedom, by
making them look to that time for anything they are
anxious to do, whether in-doors or out, will tend to
strengthen the habit of early rising, by associating it
with ideas of pleasure. The lessons to be done before.
breakfast should be of a kind that requires no superin-
tendence, since it would be a cruel exaction to insist
at that early hour on the presence of the governess,
whose health might suffer from the exertion, and whose
habits with regard to early or late hours at night are
already formed. There are always tasks to be done
without her, and in the performance of which careless-
ness could not avoid detection; as for instance, lessons
to be learnt by heart, sums or copies to be done; and
these can be appointed for that morning hour.
After breakfast, between nine o'clock and dinner-
time, we have either four or five hours to dispose of,
according as the children dine at one or at two. But
out of this time two hours and a half are all that
should be appropriated to lessons at the age I speak of;
the remaining hours should be for exercise or recrea-
tion-freedom, in short, to relax the brain. In the
course of the afternoon, one or two hours will be given
to exercise, according to the quantity that has been
taken before dinner; one half hour of lessons remains
*I am not supposing the children to remain without food till that
hour. They should eat directly they are up if they require it. Rising
at six may be found irksome in winter, but the habit is so valuable
as to make it worth any effort to make the children wish to do it.
Certain indulgences allowed at that time, and at no other, may prove
an incitement, or allowing a portion of lessons to be done if they wish
it, so as to reduce the time later.
DIVISION OF THE DAY.
207
to be finished, completing the three hours and a half
which appear to me sufficient to begin real study with ;
and we may close the school-room day with an hour
and a half of needlework. When an additional half
hour is to be given to study, which may, I believe,
be safely done at thirteen, it can be deducted from the
needlework. I have been thus particular in apportioning
the day, in order to show how I should wish study and
exercise to alternate, the former never exceeding two
hours and a half at a time, and care being taken not
to let those tasks which most try the brain immediately
succeed each other. For instance, supposing that be-
tween breakfast and dinner one hour be devoted to
arithmetic and another to grammar, the half hour of
pianoforte practice might be placed between them.
Neglect of what seems thus trifling will often make the
difference, even at a far later period, of work being
done easily, or with effort and consequent fatigue to
brain and nerves.
I have supposed a child at twelve years old to be
familiar with the four first rules of arithmetic; if this
should not be the case, that groundwork must be
firmly established before anything more is attempted.
We then proceed to the rule of three, fractions and
decimals. Accuracy and quickness in working them is
to be acquired by repeated practice alone, and that of a
nature which is seldom attractive to a child; while
learning to state an intricate sum, though more difficult
and requiring both thought and attention, is often a
pleasing exercise. One hour every day will insure a
sufficiently rapid progress, but should that length of
continued attention be too much at first, it may easily
be divided into half an hour before breakfast and the
same time in the afternoon.
>
208
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Many children might at thirteen begin the first
book of Euclid; but if there appears to be great labour
in following the reasoning, and no firm grasp of the
successive steps, it would be better to delay the study
another year.
It is a most important part of good
teaching to prevent the young mind being ever op-
pressed with a sense of impotent effort. Exertion itself
is good as mental discipline, when by honest labour and
attention clear apprehension can be gained, with that
real mastery of a subject which makes us feel that
henceforth the fraction of knowledge so laboriously won
is our own, not only to be remembered, but to be used
when occasion serves; but if it fails to produce that
result, confusion and weariness follow, which, if fre-
quently repeated, make the task oppressive and disgust-
ing; and if this is allowed to take place with children,
a blow is given to that love of acquiring knowledge
which it should be the ceaseless endeavour of education
to cherish. It is of course the duty of the teacher to
distinguish carefully between the languor of fatigue or
disappointed effort, and the languor of indolence. There
may also be want of success for a time, and consequent
fatigue, which may be overcome by a short rest and a
change of subject, after which the mind will return fresh
to its work, and see its way clearly through difficulties
that seemed insuperable before.
Good books on arithmetic for school use are not
wanting. I believe Barnard Smith's, which includes
algebra in the same volume, to be among the best;
but in this as in other subjects of elementary instruc-
tion, the books recommended as the best I am ac-
quainted with, may be superseded by others before
these pages are printed. Those I shall mention must
therefore be considered rather as indicating the nature
GEOMETRY.
209
of the instruction I should wish to give, than as being
really better than others. It is one of those points on
which the teacher must exercise her own judgment.
For geometry I should recommend the Euclid, by
Potts, which includes exercises and questions, a great
assistance to the teacher; but the mode of teaching is
more important than the book. Continual attention
must be given to ascertain not only that each proposi-
tion is understood and can be proved, but that its bear-
ing on other propositions has been clearly appre-
hended. When reference is made to what has been
demonstrated before, the demonstration must frequently
be repeated, the pupil constructing the figure for her-
self. Euclid just committed to memory would answer
none of the purposes for which we choose the study.
The method of the reasoning, the indisputable certainty
with which conclusion follows from conclusion, and the
perfect confidence to be placed in that operation of the
reason when the premises from which it proceeds have
been themselves demonstratively proved,-these are the
things to be dwelt upon and made clear to the young
mind. If the faculties are not ripe for seizing them,
the time is not come for the study to be commenced.
One hour every day I propose giving to grammar
and other lessons connected with it. The actual study
to be entered upon at this time must depend on what
has been previously learnt; whether any foreign language
has been taught in early childhood; and whether means.
and opportunity allow of teaching them now, or require
that grammatical studies should be conducted in Eng-
lish alone. I have already said that I consider the
latter only, as really essential; while I have also partly
stated the grounds* which make an acquaintance with
See chap. ii. s. 2.
P
210
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
other languages highly important; I may then here
consider the case in which the more extended study
is practicable.
Modern languages are best learnt by ear in child-
hood; and where the opportunities for so doing have
been enjoyed, both French and German may be at twelve
years old almost as familiar to a child as her native
tongue. When this is the case, the real study of gram-
mar will be best carried on through the medium of
Greek or Latin, or both successively if possible. It is
the opinion of Dr. Donaldson, and his long experience
gives him a right to speak authoritatively, that these
two languages may be begun almost together; that if
so begun at twelve years old, three years of good teach-
ing will give a tolerable knowledge of them; and that
five years of such teaching would make the pupils more
fit for college studies and examinations than they usually
are when the Latin grammar has been taught from their
nursery days. Dr. Donaldson's opinion only concerns
us so far as it shows the possibility of acquiring some
knowledge of the great languages of antiquity without
that exclusive devotion to them which they have
usually seemed to require; but as the purpose in intro-
ducing them into female education would be mainly for
the sake of the more accurate notions of grammar they
convey, I believe that one hour every day for the first
year, and an additional half hour through the second,
would in two years accomplish the desired end.
the same time, enough will have been learnt to make a
return to the study hereafter easy, to awaken the desire
to know the treasures of ancient literature, and to place
them more easily within reach of future labour.
At
During those two years the modern languages learnt
by ear could be kept up by reading, by writing notes
KEEPING UP KNOWLEDGE.
211
or journals alternately in one or the other, and when-
ever it can be done without sacrificing higher advan-
tages, by the use of lesson-books on other subjects in
whichever language requires to be most frequently prac-
tised. Thus history and geography, for instance, might
be studied in French or German instead of English,
supposing that an equally good choice of books was
offered. When the two years specially devoted to
Greek and Latin are over, they can in like manner be
kept up by means which preserve the knowledge gained
of words and forms; as, for instance, by learning poetry,
by daily reading a few lines, and by that frequent re-
currence to their grammar which the study of modern
languages will call for. The labour requisite to keep
up the knowledge once gained is less than people seem
generally aware of. We are too apt if we have not abun-
dant time for a study to drop it altogether, and then,
unless memory is peculiarly tenacious, the knowledge
already attained soon fades out of the mind. Ten
minutes perseveringly devoted to the purpose every day
would have preserved for us what perhaps cost long
labour to acquire, and will cost almost as much to re-
gain if once forgotten.
We never acquire so thorough a knowledge of the
grammar of our modern tongues, founded as they are
upon Latin and Greek, without going to the fountain-
head. The very construction of Latin, so artificial
and seemingly unnatural to us, forces attention to what
I may call the anatomy of sentences far more than is
done by the simple and to us natural arrangements of
words in modern languages. English especially, with
its want of inflexions-its great latitude of construction
-its free and unmethodical use of auxiliary verbs in
conjugations, is peculiarly unfitted for the study of
P 2
212
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
grammar. French is better, owing to its greater rigidity
of construction. Italian, as having retained more of the
Latin, gives clearer views of grammar; and German is
perhaps the best of all, owing to its inflexions and fre-
quently inverted construction forcing great attention to
grammatical rules. It has, moreover, to us this advan-
tage, that being partly the parent of English, partly
derived from a kindred origin, our own language seems
to be in some measure unfolded to us as we study the
foreign one.
Still the greatest advantages with regard to the
study of grammar are to be derived from the ancient
languages, and in many cases in which neither French
nor German could be taught, good teaching in Latin
and Greek may be procured. Independently of their
value as grammatical studies, we lose too large a
portion of the intellectual inheritance of man by
remaining ignorant of those languages. It is true
that such study of them as I have proposed here will
go a very little way: but very little is sufficient to
make the student feel the untranslatable beauties of
poetry, and to open the mind to the new classes of
associations which spring up as we read the thoughts
and consider the imagery in which fancy was clothed
in bygone times, when the whole of life was different
from what we know it, except the feelings and cravings
of the human heart and the laws of nature.
must remember also that it is not the pleasure of that
contrast alone that we find in ancient literature: that
literature has influenced the whole intellect of modern
Europe. When society awoke out of that sleep of a
thousand years' which had fallen like a spell upon the
human mind, its infant progress began by the effort to
We
ANCIENT LANGUAGES.
213
One by
retrace the steps of those mighty men of old.
one the records of their genius were rescued from dark-
ness and oblivion; and in men's minds, fascinated at
this reconquest over time and destruction, the asso-
ciations of the past became more powerful than those
of the present, and coloured every new production with
their peculiar tints. Many generations succeeded each
other, and the spirit of free inquiry was at work in
every department of knowledge, before men dared, in
their appreciation of the present and their hopes of
the future, to look back without an almost servile.
reverence on the past. It is upon such views of
ancient literature that Dr. Whewell justly founds his
defence of classical studies as a part of liberal edu-
cation which never can be abandoned without a degree
of loss it would be impossible to calculate. 'Even,'
he says, 'if the genius and skill shown in modern
poems and orations were as great as that which appears
in Homer or Virgil, Demosthenes or Cicero, the modern
works could not supply the place of the ancient ones in
education. No modern works can in men's minds
take their station in the place of the familiar models
of poetry and eloquence which have been recognised as
models for two thousand years; which have for so
many generations called forth and unfolded the ideas
of poetry and eloquence, and furnished standard exam-
ples and ready illustrations of human powers of thought
and expression. The most remarkable examples of
poetry and eloquence in modern times have been the
work of educated men, and have themselves shared in
the influence of the ancient models. We cannot
rightly admire the greatest modern poets and orators,
—we cannot admire them as they sought to be ad-
214
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
mired, if we read them in ignorance of the works of
their great predecessors in the ancient world.'*
We cannot hope generally to give girls any instruc-
tion in the ancient languages that will enable them to
enter into the spirit of their literature;† some founda-
tion of grammatical acquaintance with them is as much
as we can hope for; but the views expressed by Dr.
Whewell place in a strong light the value of trans-
lations for those who cannot read the originals. The
character of the writings, the cast of thought may be
thus learned, however the beauty may be destroyed.
I have dwelt at some length upon the value of the
study of the ancient languages, partly because of the
unfortunate neglect into which that study has fallen in
female education, and also partly because women are
too prone to join the modern cry against classical edu-
cation, without pausing to consider anything beyond the
fact that boys who are not destined for learned pro-
fessions are not likely to require Latin and Greek in
their worldly affairs.
When this advantage cannot be procured for girls,
we must turn our attention to making the best use of
modern languages. I have said above, that in point
of grammar, both German and Italian are in some
respects preferable as studies to French, but the latter
is of so much practical importance, that if one foreign
language only can be taught, it should undoubtedly
have the preference. If not learned by ear in early
* Of a Liberal Education, p. 24.
† I may be asked why I would attempt both the learned languages,
instead of labouring to give more knowledge of one ? I reply, that my
object being grammar and etymologies, both are necessary, for modern
languages are indebted to both. When help has been given for the
early grounding, a girl may take up either at a later period.
MODERN LANGUAGES.
215
childhood, it should be commenced in a regular manner
at twelve years old. The best grammar I believe to
be Le Brethone's; the teacher should take care to
point out the differences and analogies with English
grammar, as soon as sufficient knowledge has been
attained to make the comparison clear and profitable.
The study of the two languages is then carried on at
once by the task of translation. The endeavour to
render the French words and forms into pure idiomatic
English gives a more thorough comprehension of them
than can be acquired by mere reading, or by the
method of translating from our own into the foreign
tongue, unless under the guidance of a native. It is
certainly desirable to have the power of speaking and
writing a language, but it is more important to under-
stand it thoroughly; and we may get into dangerous
confusion by the habit of using words or forms of ex-
pression in a sense suggested by the practice of the
language we are translating from. The teacher should,
for the same reason, be very careful about the com-
position of the translation, since the use of the native
tongue must not be corrupted in the process of learn-
ing a foreign one. In fact the latter is but half
learned if we do not enter into its meaning so as to be
able to give the spirit of it in the new form which the
idiom of another language requires. The more words
of similar derivation are avoided in translation the
better, for the mere sound often deceives the scholars,
while in truth the apparently similar expressions have
acquired in the two modern languages meanings as
different from each other as from the Greek or Latin
original. How often translations apparently faithful
may, owing to this cause, verge upon absolute non-
sense, is daily seen in our newspaper renderings of
216
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
French or Italian speeches or writings. The pupil
cannot therefore be kept too strictly to Saxon-English
when translating from French, while for a similar
reason, when working from a German original, words
of Latin derivation may be safely used, and a some-
what French style of composition adhered to; in order
to preserve us from the too easy error of imitating
German while pretending to translate it, and of coining
words which taste and custom reject, though the spirit
of our language is sufficiently akin to the German to
allow of the freedom. Nine out of ten of the trans-
lations from that tongue afford us examples of this
deplorable corruption of English.
We
When some progress has been made, practical facility
will be increased and time saved by translating orally
instead of in writing. This should, of course, be done
out loud, the teacher looking over the original.
may be sure that any person who can take up a French
book and read it off with tolerable ease in pure idiomatic
English, has no small knowledge of both languages.
When the child has had the advantage of learning to
speak French in early childhood, this exercise should
be used alternately in the native and the foreign tongue.
There ought to be in such a case little or no difference
with regard to the facility of expression in one or the
other. When this early advantage has not been
gained, and when there is no opportunity of learning
from a native, the difficulty of acquiring ease or even
accuracy of expression is very great. Frequent reading
out loud, and likewise listening to reading, tutors the
ear, and that is an important point; both prose and
poetry should be learnt by heart and written from
memory; the prose being selected for its conversational
excellence. Nothing can be better for such an exercise
METHOD OF STUDY.
217
than Madame de Sevigné's letters; fragments from the
modern writers can also be chosen-for instance, from
Lamartine and Alexandre Dumas. Leclerc's Proverbes
are excellent in point of language, and generally unob-
jectionable in other respects. Another mode of acquiring
command of language is to take a poem and write it
out in prose, avoiding the poetical expressions and con-
struction; while we are working in the same language
there is no fear of our falling into a foreign idiom.
With a beginner it is useful when a sentence has been
learnt by heart to have it repeated several times, altering
each time the tenses of the verbs. For instance, if the
sentence describes a thing that has been done, let it
next describe the same thing as actually being done at
the present moment, next as contemplated in the future.
Then introduce an if, which forces a change of mood,
&c. Thus the proper idiomatic form of the sentence is
preserved, and as the exercise should be oral, it gives
ready command of the verbs and familiarity with the
changes which accompany that of mood or tense.
All these are but poor substitutes for the ease and
perfection with which a language is learned by talking
with natives, but I believe that by a diligent use of
them the pupil will be brought to that state of forward-
ness in which she would be able to speak correctly and
intelligibly if required, and to make rapid progress
should the opportunity be thrown in her way. When
French has been learned in early childhood, the time
we are now supposing to be given to the study of it
may, if not required for Latin or Greek, be devoted to
German without any detriment to the study of English
and French grammar. For it is certain that the labour
of learning a third language bears no comparison to
that of acquiring a second. The mind has lost, or—if
218
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
accustomed to different languages from childhood-has
never known the rigidity which comes from acquaintance
with one idiom only, and one form of grammatical con-
struction. Differences and analogies are both more
quickly discerned and more easily remembered.
If the studies are altogether restricted to English,
there will be less to do at the period we are considering.
Exercises in English grammar and correct composition
on easy subjects will take up less time, and allow there-
fore of some being given to other reading. Selections
from our great prose writers and much reading of
poetry may perhaps occupy that time as usefully as any-
thing, and supply as far as we can, by extensive acquain-
tance with the different forms of English composition,
that knowledge of the nature and power of language
which is best acquired by the comparison of different
languages. It is not yet time, however, for any study
requiring much reflection. We are but beginning to
draw out the power of reason, and till that has acquired
some strength, teaching addresses itself properly to the
memory.
It must not be supposed, however, that even while
learning foreign languages, the whole time will be
absorbed by verbal or grammatical studies. Several
works or portions of works will have been read in the
language the pupil is acquiring, and these may most
frequently be chosen with reference to the general plan
of education, either for the sake of the information.
they impart, or the new ideas they introduce. Many
subjects which cannot be made to enter into the regular
scheme of lessons at the moment can be touched upon
in this manner.
Sketches of natural history, lives of
great men, portions of large works which it is not
desirable to place in the girl's own hands, will easily
OUTLINES OF HISTORY.
219
be made use of, and a good deal of poetry will also
necessarily be read or learnt. Thus the cultivation of
taste and judgment are really going on while mere
French or German lessons are apparently occupying
the time; and be it remembered, the real work of edu-
cation is advancing whenever patience, thought, and
perseverance are steadily exercised upon any subject.
The acquisition of knowledge is the means even more
than the object of education.
One hour only of our lesson-time now remains to be
disposed of; and that belongs to historical reading, or
what we may more modestly as well as more truly call,—
preparation for historical reading. I have assumed that a
girl at twelve years old is tolerably acquainted with scrip-
ture history, and with so much of general history as to
know something of the part the Greeks and Romans played
in the ancient world, and of the rise of modern Europe
out of the ruins of the Roman empire. I suppose also
that she has read an outline of English history. Any
child of that age whose reading has been well directed
will have learned as much as this without labour. If
she has a love of reading she will probably know more,
as biographies have in that case a great charm, and
personal feeling for the great man whose life is read
gives an interest to the times-ancient or modern-in
which he lived which no mere historical lesson can
inspire. It is the fault of the education if that interest
does not lead to consulting maps and to the wish to
know more concerning the state and history of other
countries at the same time, or of the same country at
other periods. I may remark here that it is very
valuable to give a child who shows any symptoms of
this intelligent interest the habit of noting down at the
time what she most desires to learn or to read upon
220
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
any point, so that she may not lose sight of it. The
teacher when consulted must, of course, enter into the
matter with all the care which the child's earnestness
deserves, still pointing to the future for the accomplish-
ment of all that is beyond present attainment. Thus
the young creature is taught to look forward to increased
knowledge as to one of the privileges of coming years,
and the little note-book stands as a witness against her
should her eagerness slacken, or her perseverance fail.
Two great difficulties in reading history require to
be diligently struggled with: these consist in finding
out the relative positions of what we are reading about,
both in place and time, geographically and chronologi-
cally. We must not be content to know simply the
date of an event, or where to find a town upon the map,
but we must know how they stand with relation to
other towns or other events. I have supposed a child
of twelve years old to have already learned something
of geography. She ought to know generally the posi-
tion of different countries, whether continents, islands,
&c., their form as depending on chains of mountains or
the sea, their great rivers and principal cities. The use
of outline maps without names, on which the child is
practised to mark from memory the course of great
rivers or of mountain chains, and the position of a few
important towns, affords an admirable exercise of
and accuracy of eye. It should of course be done with
a pencil, and carefully compared with the proper map
for correction. When historical reading begins, it must
be with the never-failing accompaniment of maps; and
that of the country which is the subject of the day's
reading should not merely be laid open ready for refe-
rence, but attentively considered with regard to the
relative position of the countries that border on it, to
memory
GEOGRAPHY.
221
For all general
its latitude and longitude, &c. &c.
geographical views of this kind it is better to use a
globe instead of maps; this avoids the danger of fall-
ing into mistakes with regard to relative positions,
which often prove sources of great confusion in the
reader's mind. When for the sake of detail the globe
has been set aside for a map of the individual country
or district the day's reading refers to, still the lesson
should seldom pass over without a few questions to test
that the general knowledge acquired from the globe has
been accurately retained. I mentioned above an easy
method of leading even young children to a correct
knowledge of the course of rivers and position of towns;
such an exercise can be made an amusement to them,
and they can as easily be taught, roughly at first and
then more accurately, what countries any given line of
latitude or longitude will pass through if prolonged
north or south, east or west, from a given point. This
is mere skeleton knowledge, but it is a valuable founda-
tion, and will save confusion and assist the memory in
future reading. There is an excellent elementary work
on Physical Geography, by Reid, which might be studied
at thirteen without difficulty. Principles are clearly
explained, and the more attractive parts of the subject
given so as to excite interest. The outline of other
sciences connected with physical geography, such as
astronomy, geology, &c., is also briefly sketched, and
the nature of the bearing of the one upon the other
pointed out.*
Chronological tables should be no less diligently re-
ferred to than maps and globes. Nothing but a mere
fragmentary and confused notion of events can be got
* Published by Simpkin and Marshall.
E
222
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
ง
by reading detached histories, without examining how
the events we are occupied with stand in relation to the
events passing in other countries at the same time, or
which have preceded and perhaps been among the
causes that have led to them. When history comes to
be really studied for its great and important lessons,
we shall find that the very significance of events often
lies in this relative position. If, for instance, we read
of such mighty changes as the Reformation in Ger-
many, the Commonwealth, Restoration and final expul-
sion of the Stuarts in England, without reference to the
condition of other States at the same period, we under-
stand but a trifling portion of what those events indi-
cated, with regard to the countries in which they hap-
pened, or of the influence they were likely to exercise
over the destinies of mankind.
The principal advantage of teaching the early habit
of constant reference to contemporaneous events as well
as to maps, is, that the habit of turning to that relative
view of the subject should have become part of the
routine of the mind before serious study begins, in order
that the latter may be impeded by no collateral diffi-
culties. As a general rule in education, everything
which merely requires attention and memory should be
taught as far as possible before the time when we wish
the whole powers of the pupil's mind to be concentrated
on learning to reason, to reflect, to judge of thought
and action. The study of words and forms is to the
real work of education a mere mechanical routine, and
should belong to its earlier stages; and in that study
we may include all those elementary processes which
are indispensable steps to knowledge, but which, con-
sidered in themselves, merely fill the memory without
exercising one important faculty of the understanding.
CHRONOLOGY.
223
It is advisable to go very slowly to work in the task
of mastering contemporaneous chronology. Learning
long series of dates is extremely irksome, and when the
memory is not strong, the attempt to retain them is
almost hopeless. It is much to be regretted that rhyme
has not been more employed in teaching this dry pre-
face to history. Much both of chronology and geo-
graphy would be learned easily by young children in
doggrel verse and retained without difficulty; and since
this kind of knowledge is addressed to the memory
alone, the manner in which it is conveyed is of no im-
portance. To make a mere game of what should be an
exercise of thought, is to defeat the purpose of educa-
tion, but any means must be welcome by which the
memory may be furnished with materials for the un-
derstanding to work upon.
Good chronological tables are not wanting; the best
I am acquainted with are Major James Bell's. They
are as easy of reference as Lesage's, and come down to
a later period; but with a young reader, reference to a
complete table of contemporary events would lead to
mere confusion. Let her be satisfied at first with
looking out the leading facts. Supposing, for instance,
that the day's reading begins with the accession of
Queen Elizabeth to the throne of England, let her
merely ascertain in a chronological table the contem-
porary sovereigns of other countries, so as to fix them
firmly in her memory; another day she will see what
were the marked events which happened in these dif-
ferent countries contemporaneously, or nearly so, with
those which signalised the reign of Elizabeth in Eng-
land; and a further step yet will be to study the
columns which record the great men, or the principal
facts of scientific or literary history. Doubtless these
224
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
are of far more importance than the succession of kings,
but the latter must be known, and they serve as land-
marks to assist the memory. When we have these
divisions distinct and accurate in the mind, it becomes
easier to retain whatever else deserves to be remem-
bered within the same period. It is a useful plan
with children to collect groups of important dates that
fall most nearly together, taking the beginning, middle,
and end of each century as the centre point of a group.
Suppose, for instance, the most notable event we can
discover nearly at the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury to be written down upon a card, and any facts
worth remembering within ten or fifteen years of that
time, from 1490 perhaps to 1510, to be added from
time to time, the dates thus grouped should then be
learnt by heart, and habitually considered together, and
another group formed towards 1550, and so on. The
spaces between may be filled up according to inclina-
tion and the power of the memory. The great point
is, that what is learned should be firmly rooted. In-
stead of taking a particular year as the centre of a
group, an important event may be taken; but I believe
some advantage will result from the former, by leading
to a more continuous view of history. By following
such methods with perseverance, undaunted by the
labour of constant reference, the pupil will be surprised
in a short time to find how readily she can discover her
bearings on the chart of Time. Supposing her memory
to be naturally feeble, she will probably never have that
prompt recollection of single dates which is often so
much overvalued in society, but she will have laid a
clear and systematic foundation of chronology, which is
far more valuable. Her mind will have the habit of
considering the bearings of many events, instead of
TWO YEARS' READING.
225
looking at each one as an isolated phenomenon, and
will be prepared to rise to views of the history of man-
kind, while another person reading the same book,
learns the mere narrative of some national history.
During the two years we are considering, I believe
a girl will easily get through some universal ancient
history, such as Tytler's or Millot, and general short
histories of the different countries in Europe.* Consi-
dering the time spent in referring to maps and chrono-
logical tables, we may suppose that not more than
fifteen pages will be read each day. Taking five days
in the week (Sunday and a day for weekly examinations
being set apart), we find that a volume of three hundred
pages will thus be gone through in a month; and the
two years, omitting a month's holidays in each, will
allow from eighteen to twenty octavo volumes being
read without fatigue or hurry. It is possible, if me-
mory is very bad, that a work, or portions of it, may
require to be read more than once; but considering
how often, in reading the histories of different nations,
we are going over the same ground, and referring to the
same facts and persons, while the constant attention to
contemporaneous events brings them yet more fre-
quently to remembrance, I believe that by the time
those several histories have been perused, there will be
a clear and orderly outline of European history firmly
fixed in the mind. This is the indispensable preli-
minary for studying, with profit, the more detailed
account of particular periods to which we come later.
The hour spent in historical reading completes the
regular lessons for the day. Serious application is
*If the child is familiar with French or German, history will of
course be read in the one or the other, according as works fit for the
purpose are found in them.
226
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
required, and must be exacted while they last, but they
are short and sufficiently varied not to oppress the
pupil's mind.
It is very desirable that part of the
time spent in needlework should be improved by read-
ing out-loud, whether by the governess or by the
pupils taking it in turn. This reading should not be
of a kind requiring application; its purpose is mostly
to lead to conversation; it affords a good opportunity
for reading parts of books which are not of a character
to leave entirely in a girl's hands, or the account of
anything remarkable that is exciting attention at
the moment, whether public events or discovery, or
perhaps some fine passages of prose or poetry, which
the teacher may have met with in the course of her
own reading, or about which the interest of her pupils
may have been excited by some allusions or quotations
they have seen themselves. Critical remarks, com-
ments upon feeling and character, should be freely
expressed, and in a manner to lead the children to join
in with their own. The habit of taking pleasure in
conversation of that nature, and of expressing them-
selves readily and well, is a most desirable one to give.
Young people are seldom sufficiently accustomed to the
free expression of their thoughts, and difficulties, and
imaginings. It is true that in the present day, when
reverence has been nearly scouted out of the world, it
is not uncommon to find the most decided opinions
held by creatures who are incapable of having medi-
tated the grounds upon which any opinion should be
formed; and to hear them expressed with a pert for-
wardness, prompted by conceit or the prevailing spirit
of rebellion against authority. But this is not the
expression of thought, and the best mode of checking it,
indeed, is to listen with attention, and simply to desire.
BENEFIT OF CONVERSATION.
227
The
to have the reasons for the opinions advanced.
shallow dogmatist is thus driven from one point to an-
other till the confession cannot be avoided that the
opinions are borrowed without reflection or the means
of sound judgment. There will be nothing over-de-
pressing in this process if at the same time a young
girl feels that sympathy and attention are always ready
for whatever is honestly her own feeling or conviction ;
that a welcome is given to all her sincere attempts to
form an opinion-a ready ear to all her fancies and
speculations, whether excited by reading or by what
she has witnessed in real life.
Some young persons are impelled by nature to pour
out all that passes through their minds; but many are
reserved, and a still greater number are timid. Afraid
of others, or afraid of themselves, they require to be
drawn out to be led gently on to express themselves
freely. The insipid trivial talk of persons whose educa-
tion and power of mind ought to place them on a higher
level, often, I believe, results from the habit of never
expressing any thing of what lies beneath the surface of
life. It seems impossible that the general tone of
educated society should not be higher than it is, if
people showed their better nature to each other with
more frankness and simplicity.
There is often more value in an hour's conversation
with young people than in many hours' reading. The
germ of false notions may thus be checked before it
has taken root; imagination and enthusiasm can be met
with sympathy while saved from misdirection; singu-
lar views may be listened to calmly and reasoned upon
gently, obviating at once the chance of their being
maintained from mere love of paradox or singularity,
or of their producing a sense of moral wrong in timid
Q 2
228
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
minds that may honestly hold them, and yet shrink
under the feeling of differing widely from commonly
received opinions. The more bold and eager require
the discipline of open controversy, while the timid and
sensitive need the habit of free expression to give them.
confidence. To all alike, conversation with their supe-
riors in knowledge and experience is highly valuable, as
aiding to form judgment upon a great number of points
that never come within the bounds of regular study;
and to all alike it presents the further advantage of
beginning to form the habit of good and easy speaking
so rare in England.
The tone of conversation heard in the drawing-room
will, of course, have more influence than anything that
passes in the school-room. But it must often be im-
possible for very young people to take a part in draw-
ing-room conversation, while the governess will natu-
rally be careful that her remarks on books or other
subjects are of a nature to draw out her pupils'
opinions and lead them to feel and express an interest
in matters they may hereafter hear discussed by
others.
Section 2.-Having now completed the course of
study and reading for the first two years of regular
education, it will not be amiss to consider a subject
which strangely enough is very generally overlooked :
namely the art of reading itself. Everybody gets
through a certain number of books-in the present day
the number is often considerable-while comparatively
few can be said to know how to read, that is, how to
derive knowledge from a book. Not only with the
generality of persons is the mind passive when reading,
ART OF READING.
229
receiving impressions and images which the memory
retains or not according to its native power, but there
is seldom in such readers industry enough to care
whether the passing impression be a clear or confused
one, whether the words used by an author convey a
definite meaning or not, and still less whether his argu-
ment or the whole scope of his work have been clearly
apprehended. Reading in short is an amusement, a
resource against the enemy Time that so many people
are wearily seeking all their lives to baffle.
And per-
haps the very fact that mere amusement so often takes
the shape of reading deceives the mind as to the real
fact that the time is virtually spent in idleness. Even
in his day Dr. Butler remarked that the number of
'books and papers of amusement' favoured habits
which were most opposed to studious reading, 'by this
means,' he says, ' time, even in solitude, is happily got
rid of without the pain of attention: neither is any
part of it more to be put to the account of idleness,
one can scarce forbear to say, is spent with less thought,
than great part of that which is spent in reading.'*
And if that were true more than a century ago what
must it be now, when for each paper of amusement
which existed in Butler's day, dozens are to be found
upon every table, from the boudoir to the back-shop?
Must we not fear that the habits formed upon such mate-
rials will be very unfavourable to earnest attention, and
that the mind, accustomed to be passively entertained,
will be hard to rouse to the labour of thought?
cordingly, how common is it to find that works of real
value are read either for the sake of the narrative they
may contain, or because they are much talked of, or
Ac-
*Preface to Sermons.
230
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
merely because they come in the way,* without exciting
the mind to more labour than it gives to a newspaper
article. A clear style is a great snare to such readers;
lured on by that, no difficulty is perceived, no new
opinion appears startling, no statements strange.
The time actually spent in reading for amusement is
a slighter evil than the habit formed of being unable
to find anything but amusement in a book, of being
apparently engaged in an earnest pursuit while the
mind is inert and sunk in indolence. Supposing the
books themselves to be unobjectionable, reading is cer-
tainly a very innocent form of pleasure. We may
even admit more; for the mind is on the way to better
things should the desire for them arise; and some
casual expression, some statement or allusion in a book
may awaken that desire and give the first bend in a
new direction, which could scarcely happen in the course
of any other kind of amusement, but still it must be
remembered that reading without a definite purpose and
a studious intention is amusement only. With chil-
dren indeed it is well to give the love of books at any
price. Let them find pleasure in reading, in hopes that
we may lead them to find real and serious interest here-
* The absence of any idea of the necessity of a systematic purpose in
reading is clearly marked by the common way of getting books from a
library or book-club. Whatever happens to be sent, or to be recom-
mended as new, is read without reference to any previous reading, or
to any acquired knowledge, and without the least intention of following
up the subject. To-day a history comes to hand, to-morrow a novel-
then a volume of essays, next a biography, or travels, which suppose
previous acquaintance with the natural productions, the geology, or the
former history of the country, none of which the reader possesses nor
thinks of acquiring. Such reading is just a substitute for a series of
dioramas or theatrical representations that would keep the mind amused
by a constant succession of scenes or images, an amusement harmless
in itself, but fraught with mischief if it leads the young mind to believe
that it deserves any better name than amusement.
CAUSES OF CARELESS READING.
231
after. It is for this reason that the folly of setting a
lesson as a punishment is two-fold, it makes the lesson
odious, and it tends to create an unpleasant association
with books, while the object of the parent should be to
make reading rank high among pleasures, and if pos-
sible to make the mental exertion necessary for a lesson
pleasurable also.
Careless reading arises from indolence, which is satis-
fied with passive impressions, or from that mental con-
fusion which allows the mind to be satisfied with ill-
defined thoughts and images, and does not perceive
when a statement is clearly apprehended or not. To
guard against this our great endeavour must be to lead the
mind to find delight in the sense of intellectual activity.
This should be begun in early childhood by carefully
applied stimulus and encouragement, and perhaps more
than all, by judicious attention to apportioning the task
exactly to the powers of the child, it should be just dif
ficult enough to require an effort, and just easy enough
to make sure of victory. Then the achievement be-
comes a matter of congratulation; the child's pride is
roused and its ambition awakened. When the under-
standing is sufficiently developed to be appealed to, then
we may venture to expect exertion from a sense of duty
or the hope of a more distant reward. Not till then
should we set a task which requires the continued atten-
tion of several days before the child can perceive its
own progress, and feel the pleasant sensation of having
conquered.
Every successive lesson, or rather subject on which
lessons are given, should be chosen with a view to call
forth some additional measure of exertion, both of at-
tention and comprehension, and a large measure, if pos-
sible, of desire to know. It little matters what; the one
232
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
important thing is to train that desire, together with
the feeling of dissatisfaction in not understanding; the
impatience of a confused perception which prompts the
mind to seek explanation, and to find pleasure in clear-
ness.
If thus prepared from the early dawn of intelligence,
the child will begin studious reading at twelve years old,
with habits which will make progress both easy and
sure. It will be more or less rapid according to the
measure of natural ability, but the child's own mind
will be working with the teacher's, and that mental
labour is itself of the highest value. When that early
preparation has been neglected, the chief object in study-
ing must be to remedy the defect. Some of the sub-
jects on which the child will be occupied necessarily
exact attention, and thus force the right habit without
further effort from the teacher. Such is the case with
arithmetic and partly with grammatical exercises. Rules
of grammar may be committed to memory, but they
cannot be applied without some effort of understanding.
There must be sufficient exercise of thought to enable
the child to distinguish when or why certain rules are
to be observed. The lessons on both subjects however
may of course be made more or less a school for thought
according to the method of the teacher; if the latter is
satisfied with the mere correctness of a task done, a very
good memory in the pupil may carry her through with
the help of attention only; but a few questions will
soon detect any lurking confusion or any indifference
to obtaining a clear apprehension; or a new statement
of a rule will force the indolent mind to think and
to discover what are the real points which it has to
attend to.
But it is in reading that the governess may most.
THE SLOW AND THE INDOLENT.
233
Unless
readily test her pupil's desire to understand.
early broken in to proper habits the naturally active
and intelligent alone will ask questions of their own
accord. The lesson is simply a lesson; it is as easy to
read what is but half understood as what presents a
clear meaning. A long word strange enough to make
a difficulty in pronouncing it may force a question, but
otherwise the indolent will prefer not understanding to
the trouble of making inquiries and the chance of
lengthening a lesson. On the other hand, the dull do
not easily find out that they are particularly in the
dark, and are rarely indeed able to ask the right ques-
tion which would point out the confusion. A child
whose questions show that the mind is eager and work-
ing upon the subject presented to it, should be met half
way with ready and full information, and that tone of
alacrity which marks sympathy and pleasure on the
part of the teacher. With the dull every effort should
be made to stimulate them; encouragement, an appear-
ance of confidence in their power to apprehend and their
wish to do so, an unwearied patience in going over the
same ground again and again so long as the pupil gives
earnest attention. With the indolent, on the contrary,
it is well to let the lesson owe additional weariness to
the effects of their own indolence.
It is not merely the meaning of words that a child
will not understand, but that of the sentence which
may convey an opinion she never heard before, or an
inference from something preceding, the connexion with
which has not been clearly apprehended. Or allusions
may be made to things or persons she is unacquainted
with, but the knowledge of which is indispensable to
understanding the author's meaning. Or reflections
may occur which are unintelligible unless the whole
234
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
scope of perhaps many pages has been clearly grasped
and carried in the mind. Now these difficulties are all
so many traps into which the indolent fall. If allowed
to run on unchallenged they will remain contentedly in
the dark, but a few questions will quickly detect the
ignorance, and till the latter is fully acknowledged no
explanation should ever be offered. Sometimes mental
indolence will prompt a child to say she understands
when this is far from being true, and that without in-
tentional falsehood, but really because she is too care-
less to know when she has or has not a clear notion of
a subject. In all cases when the question do you un-
derstand?' is answered in the affirmative, an explanation
should be required. Why is such or such an allusion
made? what does it refer to? what is the inference
drawn by the author? why does he say therefore it fol-
lows?' &c. &c. Questions such as these will expose to
a child her own utter carelessness, the complete waste
of whatever time has been spent upon the lesson, and
the evident necessity of going over it again. For it
should be made clear to a child from the first that
getting through the book is not the object of the lesson
(
(
not even if its words remain fixed on the memory;
that her own earnest endeavour to work and understand
is the only satisfactory indication of progress. It is by
such a method that an indolent learner may, as I said.
before, be made to feel additional weariness owing to
the effects of her own indolence, and she may perhaps
be roused by this means to conquer the fault in order
to escape its consequences.
In reading history, which, however briefly treated,
touches on so many subjects of deep human interest,
the teacher must endeavour to point out the moral
bearing of different questions brought forward, the
EXCITING INTEREST IN BOOKS.
235
influence of certain courses of action, the tendencies of
certain dispositions, the progress resulting from certain
great steps in knowledge or discovery. These are the
questions for the sake of which alone history will be.
studied more closely at a later period, but even thus
early they should not be passed over. The habit of
speculating upon what is read, of exercising thought
instead of merely following words, is thus gradually
begun. Another important point also is gained, that
of exciting interest in something foreign to daily expe-
rience and leading the young mind to a large sphere
of sympathies. This may be further encouraged by
additional information of an interesting nature given
by the teacher, such as facts tending to increase admi-
ration for some favourite character, or amusing illustra-
tions of a particular epoch or state of manners. These
may be just alluded to during the lesson and the full
account given later. The biography may be searched
out for the reading of leisure hours, or some fine pas-
sages of poetry bearing upon the characters, or the
period, or else upon the moral points in question may
be recited or read by the teacher. In this manner the
lessons and the leisure hours will be bound together by
links of common interest, and the connexion be esta-
blished in the child's mind between the earnest wish to
learn which makes the lessons easier and pleasanter,
and the eager interest about many things which gives
such zest to the reading for amusement.
In most cases what belongs to human life and action
will most readily touch the chord of sympathy, and
therefore excite interest, but sometimes the latter will
be as quickly aroused upon other subjects, on points
connected with natural history, for instance, or even
science. Whatever it may be, let the clue be followed
236
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
up; what we want is to cultivate a habit, and it matters
nothing whether it be through the means of one book
or another. Such differences of taste should also be
carefully watched in another point of view, for the turn
of the mind towards facts or speculation affords valuable
indications to the teacher. In the one case habits of
observation, in the other habits of reasoning, will be
the most easily formed, and the general cast of the
mind will probably in the one become practical, in the
other speculative. These tendencies must, of course,
be watched, and the excess or evil of each disposition.
guarded against in education.
Differences in the mode of dealing with difficulties.
are among the first intellectual indications which a
teacher has to study in her pupils. We may even
with grown persons read character in some important
respects from their conduct in this particular. Some
are impatient of the obstacle put in their path, and
attack it with vigour, but are unequal to any continued
exertion; some are overcome at once; they magnify
the evil in their own minds, and are often more
frightened by the vision they have conjured up them-
selves than by the real circumstances of the case which
they have not calmness and patience to examine.
Others again rise with fresh spirit under the sense that
fresh exertion is required; their energy is roused by
difficulty, and power grows with the energy. These
differences are shown in practical matters no less than
in study, and indeed according to the bent of the tastes
towards one or the other we may find energy in dealing
with practical difficulties and timidity in shrinking from
intellectual exertion, or the reverse. The duty of edu-
cation, therefore, is to excite the active spirit or to
cultivate it if it exist by nature, so that it shall be
MEETING DIFFICULTIES.
237
exerted whenever occasion calls for it, not merely under
the circumstances that appeal to strong tastes or feelings,
but habitually and from the motive that whatever we
have undertaken to do ought to be done with prompti-
tude and resolution: so trained, the young will feel that
to waver or turn back, to be daunted by trouble or diffi-
culty, is a form of moral cowardice to be ashamed of.
An indolent child is overwhelmed by difficulties in
general without being able to point out any particular
thing that requires explanation, and is especially averse
to the labour of working alone. If a child desires to
plod on and overcome a difficulty by her own exertion,
we may be sure the right spirit is in her; or if when
she comes for help she can point out where the diffi-
culty lies, what link in the explanation has failed her
we should be satisfied, for it is evident that she has
thought and worked sufficiently to clear up a large
portion of the subject. What comes within reach of
her previous knowledge is clearly made out, and she
discerns the boundary of the new. This is exactly the
state the mind should be in to labour with profit; and
to this state therefore the governess must try to bring
a less willing pupil before she gives her help.
Quick children are very often averse to application,
and they require careful watching lest they should
deceive both themselves and their teachers. They are
often impatient of difficulties and slur them over, being
enabled to do so by the quick apprehension with which
they seize certain points. The teacher should be mer-
ciless in exposing the real confusion which exists under
this seeming facility, for the quick child being gene-
rally proud of her capacity, will deeply feel the morti-
fication of being thus forced to confess that she was
satisfied with half understanding, and she may thereby
238
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
be spurred to more exertion in future. The lurking
insincerity also of such a mode of study, of any want
of earnest intention in what we ostensibly undertake
to perform, should be pointed out. The first approach
to pretension must be carefully watched with girls; for
since their knowledge will not in after life be tested.
practically, like that of men, they will be able to keep
up with much better success an appearance of know-
ing more than they really do, and thereby feed conceit
while learning to be satisfied with false pretences.
Habits of accurate thought and real love of truth will
be their only safeguards against a fault which their
intercourse with the world will have no tendency to
check.
Idleness, that is a mere disinclination to work, is
not so serious a defect as inattention, which trifles with
work while appearing to do it. This fault is one which
it is very difficult to deal with, because it may be im-
possible to coerce attention beyond a certain point,
and few things are more dangerous than for the teacher
to insist on anything which authority is incompetent
to enforce. If the pupil be allowed to dawdle over a
task, her habit of inattention, of careless working, may
be encouraged by it. It is not enough, therefore, to give
her a certain task, but the time within which she is
required to do it must be also fixed. If it is not
finished at the specified hour, then it may be necessary
to impose some punishment, but the latter should not
include finishing the task, since, if a given time were
again appointed for the work, inveterate habit might
lead to a second failure, and so on; or the child, if ob-
stinate, may purposely abstain from exertion, and then
the teacher may be baffled in a manner very difficult to
meet; while on the other hand, if the neglected task is
IN ATTENTION.
239
simply ordered to be finished, without fixing the time,
the child is at liberty to dawdle, and the very punish-
ment may tend to strengthen the bad habit. It cannot
be too often enforced upon teachers that habits, not
information, constitute the great aim of education.
Doubtless we desire to give knowledge, but what we
must seek first and above all, is to cultivate in the
mind those habits which will make it capable of valu-
ing and acquiring knowledge hereafter.
Inattention is most common with quick and easily
excited children. When it is found united with slow-
ness, it requires a degree of patience in the teacher
which few can appreciate who have not been so tried.
The same management however applies to this as to
the former case. The only difference being in the ex-
tent and difficulty of the task appointed. Provided
that it be certainly within the child's power, the per-
formance of it may be as rigidly exacted from her as
from the more intelligent. Great discrimination is.
requisite on this point, in all cases alike; for if once
the teacher can be shown to have imposed conditions
which her pupil's honest exertions were not capable of
fulfilling, the spell of her authority is broken. The
child may feel the necessity of outward obedience, but
there will be in her mind a conflict between the feeling
of duty and the suspicion that her teacher may be
wrong; such a conflict weakens both the moral and the
intellectual power of exertion. Great care must be
taken in teaching a child of really slow apprehension
not to overtax the power of attention. The great point
is gained when the child is led to make a determined
voluntary effort, say for two minutes only, then relax-
ation of the weak power should be allowed for a time,
till it has recovered energy for another vigorous short
240
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
grasp of the subject matter from the point which had
been clearly grasped before. It is well to draw atten-
tion to the mental power thus exerted, and if some
degree of pride and pleasure can be excited in the con-
sciousness of successful exertion, there will be fresh
courage for new efforts, and these may be gradually
extended to longer periods. At first the child's willing-
ness to make the painful exertion will be greatly owing
to the expectation of speedy release, in time the wil-
lingness grows into habit.
The most hopeless defect to struggle against in
intellectual education is mental indolence, which I
have already alluded to in speaking of the difficulty of
making children read with profit. But this fault, where
it exists, runs through all they do which calls for any
degree of mental exertion; if a game requires a little
thought they will turn from it with as much distaste
as from study. It is found in children of various
grades of capacity, though seldom probably when the
latter is of a high order, unless it be connected with
delicate health. In such cases the lassitude of the
body seems to cast a torpor over the mind, and it is
possible that some highly-wrought natures are saved
from injury to the brain by this utter aversion to effort
which preserves the mind from over-fatigue while the
physical frame is still feeble and immature.
These, however, are exceptional cases.
In general
when we find mental indolence in children, it must be
vigorously and perseveringly attacked. It is not so
much what they do, but how they do it, which needs
watching. For children afflicted with this defect will
often go through the routine of their lessons well
enough, they are not idle but inert; they enter into
the spirit of no one study they are engaged in; they
MENTAL INDOLENCE.
241
feel the pressure of difficulties but are insensible to the
pleasure of success. They read without caring to
understand. They hear subjects of interest discussed,
and never feel their own interest sufficiently excited
to seek an explanation. They see new or unusual
things, and even curiosity cannot stimulate them to
seek further knowledge about them.
With a pupil of this description every lesson should
as far as possible be given in a form that shall force
some degree of thought. Composition, for instance, is
an excellent exercise, especially if the teacher be vigi-
lantly on her guard against imitation and borrowed
sentiments, and it may be required in the shape of
notes or abstracts of what has been read, or an account
of the pupil's own meaning when she has acquiesced in
some statement or opinion, which there may be good
ground for believing she has never considered at all.
Whenever she is forced to acknowledge that such has
been the case, and that she really is ignorant in the
matter, it should be always carefully pointed out that
it is not the ignorance which is disgraceful, but the
being contented with ignorance. Not to know, is the
lot of every one, in different degrees; all that can be
required of us is to be aware of our ignorance and
desirous to remove it.
Moral motives may sometimes be successfully ap-
pealed to in order to combat this kind of indolence.
The great principle that we are responsible to God and
our own conscience for the use of all the capacity we
possess should be earnestly enforced; and the duty of
usefulness to others which flows as a natural conse-
quence from that principle. The young mind, while
still intellectually feeble is so often open to the force
of moral views, which are more or less connected with
R
242
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION,
feeling, and still more to the action of generous senti-
ment, that many a child who might resist all mere
reasoning about the advantages of knowledge will feel
spurred. to exertion when made to perceive how the
indolent carelessness of one human being inevitably
affects others; how the neglect of the means of useful-
ness we possess, the waste of the time we might have
improved, may cause evil and suffering through a circle
too wide for us at any given moment to perceive the
links that unite us to it. When feeling has been roused
on this subject, perhaps some direct office of usefulness
or benevolence will stir the indolent mind to exertion
better than mere mental labour.
With regard to studies it is well to try every means
of discovering what will excite a taste in the indolent
child. Whatever it may be, if not utterly foolish let
her pursue it. The habit of studying some one thing
earnestly and with pleasure may influence the mind
and awaken its dormant energies. If the child will
learn to love work and seek knowledge by studying
and attending to the flowers in her garden, that is
more profitable to her than grammar or geography
which she commits lazily to memory. Our care must
be however that the chosen pursuit be followed as
closely and methodically as if it were the driest lesson.
We may change the subject, but not the method, for
the latter is education itself.
There are cases however where even this fails, where
no taste can be discovered, nothing offers sufficient
stimulus to rouse the mind to willing exertion, we can
then only toil on hoping for the future. And the
future will sometimes—perhaps generally-bring the
reward to such persevering effort. Nothing varies so
much in different individuals as the period at which
WANT OF ORIGINALITY.
243
the faculties and character develope and assume their
right proportions. Thus many a young person who
has seemed almost hopelessly inert and indifferent till
eighteen or nineteen years of age, and even later, will
at twenty-five exhibit a wholly new phase of mental
life. Their store of knowledge will of course be very
small compared with that of others, and there may
never be opportunities of wholly repairing the early
defect, but the laborious patience of parents and teachers
will be found not to have been in vain. When the
mind begins to exert itself it works upon right prin-
ciples; and that habit is more valuable than knowledge
without system.
In watching children, the teacher should never lose.
sight of the important distinction between the original
mind and the mere lively retailer of the thoughts of
others. This distinction is one of the most striking
through life, and more than any other single test
decides the intellectual rank the individual deserves to
hold in our estimation. Dr. Johnson expressed it
admirably when he refused to give an opinion of a
man's power of conversation, because he did not yet
know whether his talk flowed from a reservoir or a
spring. A person gifted with considerable original
power may appear dull in comparison with one who
retails with liveliness what a good memory has enabled
her to retain. In society this may be very deceptive
for a time, but a teacher has too many occasions to
test the real capacity to be so deceived; it should be
her care to prevent the child deceiving herself. No
imitation should be applauded, no borrowed opinion,
no statement repeated without examination as if it
were made upon personal knowledge, should pass un-
questioned; while pleasure should be testified at every
R 2
244
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
instance of simple accuracy, every proof that the thing
advanced has been thought over and is a genuine
opinion or even fancy of the speaker's. Liveliness is
what makes the want of originality dangerous. Without
it no one is deceived. The dull retailer is simply a
It is the false brilliancy of
very tiresome companion.
the lively imitator which encourages conceit, and by
the applause of society leads the mind to be satisfied
with seeming instead of reality.
Some caution on the mother's part must always be
necessary when her children differ very widely in intel-
lectual capacity, lest the interest of the governess
should be too exclusively roused for the one who shows
most talent. Two evils may result from that kind of
partiality. The already active brain may be over-
stimulated or conceit may be encouraged, while on the
other hand the dulness of the less favoured child may
be increased by the depressing effect of being made to
feel that she is thought less worthy of attention. There
is also some difficulty in dealing with the children
themselves, in avoiding all deceit without either unduly
elating the one or depressing the other.
It is mere nonsense with a clever child to attempt
to disparage her powers. Either she is too conscious
of them to believe what is said, and then her faith in
those she ought to trust is shaken; or else, if nervously
sensitive, as gifted natures often are, she will oscillate
between low fits of depression and fever-fits of am-
bitious exertion; alternately believing the voice from
within or the warning from without according to the
condition of her health or animal spirits. With the
slow child likewise it is folly to attempt to disguise the
truth. If in the hope of stimulating her feeble powers
she is told that she might do as well as her sister
DIFFERENT DEGREES OF ABILITY.
245
would she only take the trouble, she also will be sub-
ject to painful alternations of hope and despondency;
and finally, in addition to the discouragement of baffled
endeavour, she also will lose confidence in those who
held up to her a false hope.
It is wiser in every point of view to deal truly and
frankly with both children. When they are of an age
to understand it, let them be taught that the real
object of education is the same for both, not by holding
up the same standard of attainment, but by endeavouring
to make the most in each of that measure of capacity
which God has given. We cannot all learn alike, but
we can all give earnest, honest exertion to whatever is
set before us, and according to our ability improve our-
selves and serve others.
The dull child should see that her mother and gover-
ness have unwearied patience in explaining, in going
over the ground slowly and repeatedly, so long as she
gives unwearied attention; that they are content that
she should gain knowledge by very small degrees, so
long as they make sure that she is doing her best to
form the habit of observing and thinking; that she is
willing to sift a question till she understands it
thoroughly, never ashamed of the length of time she
may be obliged to spend on one point so that she ends
with a clear and accurate notion at last. She should
be allowed to know,-for sooner or later she must know
and feel it,—that she cannot be on a par with the bril-
liant in intellect; let her see her sister's superiority
and learn to love it. This honest admiration of supe-
rior abilities, joined to the calmness and self-possession
which belong to knowing our own position, and accept-
ing it as that which God has appointed us to improve
and to be useful in, will be the surest safeguards against
1
246
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
any mortification which may await the less gifted in
society.
The clever child should be dealt with no less openly.
Let her rejoice in her powers, but rejoice only as in
the possession of a treasure for the use of which she is
responsible. Do not damp her ardour, but give it a
higher direction than the whisperings of her young
ambition would prompt. Enforce the conviction that
in a woman's life there is, or ought to be,—no place
for display, and little for the brilliant exercise of intel-
lect; but a wide field for the usefulness and activity of
a well-stored mind, of sound opinions and mature judg-
ment. In accordance with this view let her see that
these are the points her mother values most highly;
those which she considers the test of real superiority;
that she thinks little of the brilliancy which is owing
to quick apprehension and retentive memory, but much
of the patient labour of thought, of accurate discrimi-
nation, of pains taken to form a right opinion, of sound
judgment and perseverance whether in study or prac-
tical matters. The child will then feel that however
much she owes to nature, she will win solid esteem only
by the mental habits she must cultivate as assiduously
as her less gifted sister. The more she has been
favoured the greater she will feel to be the obligation
laid upon her.
The cultivation of the memory is a special and im-
portant object to be borne in mind throughout the
course of study. To learn and to forget is but a
melancholy renewal of the toils of Sisyphus, for ever
undergoing hard labour, never to attain our object. I
believe that when nature has denied the original power
of memory, or given it in a very small degree, it is not
possible to repair the misfortune, but industry and
CULTIVATION OF MEMORY.
247
method will do a great deal to obviate some of its evils;
and this is certain, that few persons of bad memory
have given such a degree of persevering attention to the
subject as may entitle them to say what is or is not
within reach of remedy. The art of treasuring know-
ledge is too little studied either by those who are, or
those who are not gifted by nature.
The former gene-
rally trust to their natural power, and the latter give
way to despair, feeling their natural infirmity, while
both neglect the means which might improve the defect
or prevent the gift from being wasted. It is not suf
ficient in any case to trust to natural power alone; even
methodical reading will scarcely ensure sufficient accu-
racy without some degree of labour in striving to retain
the fruits of our reading in a shape which shall be ready
for reference. Notes, which are absolutely indispen-
sable when the memory is weak, are highly valuable
whatever be its power, and the very habit of making
them helps to keep present in the mind the necessity
rather of an accurate than a ready memory, of syste-
matised rather than of varied knowledge.
With children I believe it best to follow the same
plan whether the memory be good or bad; to take
equal pains to ascertain what has been remembered and
how, and to prevent desultory habits which, though
less destructive to a good memory than to a bad one,
are equally pernicious to the tone of mind.
Of course
there will be less need in the former case for the dis-
heartening labour of repetition, and therefore progress
will be more rapid, while in the latter, though ground
may be gained very slowly, it will be gained surely and
permanently. What we have to aim at is that memory
should be retentive, accurate, and if possible, ready. Of
these qualities the last is least and the second is most
248
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
.
within the reach of art. Fortunately the last is also
the least valuable, except for the purpose of display in
society, where it will win more applause than gifts of
far higher character. There are, indeed, occasions in
which a prompt recollection of facts is very useful, but
in general, time can be afforded for the labour of dis-
tinctly recalling what is suggested to the weak memory
at first rather as a shadowy phantom than in any defi-
nite form. No trouble of reference and repetition
should be spared to ensure accuracy of recollection;
there must be no weariness or impatience in going over
the same ground, in looking out for the fiftieth, or if
need be the hundredth, time for the date of the fact,
or the explanation of the term which has been for-
gotten.
In order to cultivate the retentive power of a weak
memory, or to improve the character of a good one, it is
necessary to bear in mind those principles of associa-
tion according to which knowledge will be combined
systematically, not gathered up in a confused mass.
We must take care in teaching a new thing that some
links should be ready to bind it with former knowledge,
and that still as we work on, it should as far as pos-
sible be done as from a centre outwards, order prevailing
throughout, and a connecting link being kept up.
Systematic study is important in every respect; it in-
fluences the mental habits and modes of thought, and
is therefore the real matter of intellectual education,
but I speak of it here only with reference to its bearing
on the cultivation of memory. The latter must be
powerful indeed to retain desultory information, which,
even if retained, will seldom be reproduced in any
useful form.
The character of the memory is greatly influenced
CULTIVATION OF MEMORY.
249
by our mode of observation. Attention should, then,
be paid to forming right habits of observation in
children. At first the object is to make them observe
generally, to stimulate the faculty, if not naturally
quick, by means both of lessons and games, and gra-
dually to train some discrimination, to turn attention
to resemblances and contrasts, then to analogies, and
thus by degrees to lead the mind to that mode of view-
ing things which will give the habit of classing and re-
membering them according to philosophical instead of
mere casual associations. The ground is thus prepared
for systematic study, and for a methodical storing up of
whatever knowledge is gained. All those first steps in
forming correct habits belong to early education. They
are part of that hourly mental influence which should
be exercised over the child from the moment it is able
to compare and remember. It is not a question of
books and set lessons, but of constant attention in lead-
ing the mind to work on right principles. When we
come to the time for real study, the groundwork as I
said before should be already laid. It is not yet time,
however, to explain to the child the principles on which
it is unconsciously working; we must still be content to
lead without making known the object towards which
we are tending.
The actual method of cultivating the memory by
means of the lessons at this period, will be first: learning
by heart, taking care that no new acquisition drives out
the old. This should have been carefully attended to
from the earliest time that lessons were committed to
memory. Many children learn poetry, or indeed dry
lists of words, with extreme facility, but as easily for-
get them; and such children generally are fond of learn-
ing a new piece, and shrink from the labour of going
250
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
over the old. Yet this is what must be strictly exacted;
and it is still better to force, if possible, the recollection
of what has been partially lost than to let it be learnt
over again. The latter is no trouble, and is not more
likely to make a lasting impression than before. But
the exertion of trying to recall the half-faded impression,
the working of the mind as it first catches one lost
link and then another is beneficial in itself, and tends
to impress more deeply what has thus been painfully
reconstructed. The practice of learning poetry should
continue at the period we are considering, always letting
a child choose the lines for herself in the first instance.
If the choice should be a bad one, it affords an oppor-
tunity of beginning to point out the characteristics of
poetry, and what makes one piece more worthy of being
studied and remembered than another. There will be
other things also to commit to memory; such as the
groups of dates which the child will have partly at least
constructed for herself. She should also be made to
write down the explanation of any term she was not
before acquainted with and to learn it by heart. In
making lists of this kind, some persons have found that
their recollection is assisted by using ink of two colours,
calling in the help of vision as an auxiliary to the memory.
Thus, the term to be explained may be written in red,
and the explanation in black ink, in separate columns.
The same with the chronological lists; the date may be
written in one colour, and the event it refers to in
another. Clearness and neatness, which assist in con-
veying a complete and distinct impression, doubtless
assist recollection. Indeed vividness of impression is
so favourable to memory that, other things being equal,
we should always expect a person of vivid imagination
to remember more distinctly than an unimaginative
ASSISTING MEMORY.
251
one. Whatever we can do, therefore, with children to
cultivate this valuable property of imagination, to make
them take strong and lively impressions of what they
hear and see, is highly beneficial. Inertness of mind
is no less a foe to memory than to intellectual power.
Besides learning by heart, a girl of twelve years old
may begin to acquire the method of storing the fruits
of her own reading. The lists above-mentioned belong
to this part of the subject, but she may also begin to
make notes. This habit is so essential for any profit-
able study, and the difficulty so great of doing anything
of the kind with invariable regularity, that the practice
should be early begun. It should be a fixed principle
in the child's mind, worked in by the daily habit of
her life, that what she goes through the labour of read-
ing deserves the labour of being remembered; and that
although much must be trusted to memory and much
inevitably forgotten, the leading facts, or striking
thoughts, and the results of the reading should be
preserved from oblivion and so arranged as to be ready
for reference. Little can be done at the age we now
speak of; the habit only can be formed of considering
that notes are an essential part of study, and if a child
sees that her mother or governess makes it an invari-
able practice to read with a pencil and piece of paper
by her side, she will soon think that she is unduly de-
pressed in the scale of intelligence if she is not thought
fit to have a piece of paper and pencil also. When
this habit is begun, the teacher must be very careful to
lead her pupil to observe and record the right things,
and to point out to her the reasons for differing from
her on any occasion. She will make her see that of
two facts mentioned one leads to greater consequences
than the other, or is connected with other facts she has
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
already become acquainted with, and thus supplies a
link and forms part of a systematic body of information.
The teacher will, perhaps, assist to form the habit of
condensing the matter which is to be preserved in notes,
if during the first year she dictates them herself, having
first questioned the child about the day's reading and
ascertained that she feels what are the leading facts
which it is desirable to make a note of. The necessity
of this preliminary consideration is apparent, when we
remember how loosely most people state a fact or an
argument which they have heard, and how seldom they
can seize at once the important points even of a trans-
action that has passed before their own eyes. This is
not generally from want of memory, but from the want
of logical clearness in the mind, from the absence of
that sense of the proportional and relative value of dif
ferent facts or arguments, which belongs to the habit of
marshalling our thoughts into order for the sake of
accurate reasoning. Children of twelve and thirteen
are not yet fit to have their reasoning power directly
exercised in study, but the mind may be led to work
according to the method which will be necessary when
it does begin those severer studies; just as we make
little children express themselves grammatically before
they are able to understand a rule of grammar, and the
habit formed by routine is afterwards explained by phi-
losophy.
Supposing the teacher to dictate the notes, she may
accomplish two objects by dictating them in French.
Orthography is in that language a test of grammatical
accuracy, and to write from dictation is excellent prac
tice. The terminations in verbs and participles being
affected by gender and number while they frequently
do not sound to the ear, and the rules with regard to
WEEKLY EXAMINATIONS.
253
participles especially requiring great nicety of applica-
tion, even educated French people are apt to fall into
mistakes in writing their language. Should the pupil
however not be sufficiently familiar with French to
write with ease from dictation, this double purpose
must be abandoned, for the mind must not be diverted
from the principal object before it by any collateral
difficulties. For the same reason no books in an un-
familiar language should be used as class books in the
study of any other subject but the language itself.
Wherever the understanding is to be exercised it must
be left unembarrassed in its operations.
The third point I would recommend as assisting the
memory is a weekly examination of what has been
learned. By the frequency of the examinations the
teacher will bear fresh in her mind what were her
pupil's difficulties; what are the points that require
most attention; where the understanding seemed most
to fail, and where the memory. Thus also no large
amount of loss can be incurred; the path that must be
trodden again will not lead far back. Another and
greater advantage is that we avoid going on upon
uncertain ground, and teaching new things without
being sure that they rest on the solid foundation of
the old, in which case the child's mind may be working
in that dim state that results from confused recollection,
while we vainly believe that we are making real pro-
gress. Every week then I would interrupt the onward
course and examine into the real state of the acquisi-
tions already made. It should be optional with the
teacher to go back to any portion of the former lessons,
whether pieces learnt by heart, or notes from reading,
or explanations of facts or terms. Week by week it
should be ascertained that what information has been
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
gained is accurate,-that what impressions have been
made are distinct,—that what thoughts have been sug-
gested, what ideas have been presented to the mind are
clear; that, in short, there is no lurking confusion or
error to mislead the future efforts of the understanding,
or cloud the conceptions of the imagination. The
tediousness of this process, involving as it does frequent
repetition, and frequent enforcing of the same truths,
may appear insufferable to some people, while the
absence of brilliant results would mortify many; but
showy progress is so utterly unimportant, even know-
ledge itself is so secondary, when compared with the
mental habits to be formed by study, that no sacrifice
of either should deter us from following the system which
promises to cultivate those habits most successfully.
Section 3.-The necessity of economy will not require
any great difference to be made in the course of study
at this period of education. Girls from twelve to four-
teen are too young to be much employed in practical
affairs, and under almost any circumstances four hours
in the day can well be spared for lessons by a child of
this age, although little time perhaps can be spared by
the mother to overlook them. Still with the help of
the most ordinary governess, or even if necessary with-
out any assistance, a mother who can devote even an
hour and a half in the day to teaching may accomplish
a considerable portion of the course indicated above,
Good
and at any rate adhere to its general order.
instruction in arithmetic is so easily procured that it is
hard to suppose any obstacle to that study. Languages
whether ancient or modern present more difficulty, but
supposing the mother to have any knowledge of French
DIFFICULTIES FROM SMALL MEANS. 255
herself, she can begin teaching that most important of
the continental languages, and by insisting on much
learning by heart, copying, and translating, she may,
though unable to speak it, lay the foundation of a
thorough knowledge of the language, which will give
the key to its rich literature and be of use in the sub-
sequent study of grammar and composition. It is true
that with good native teachers, two foreign languages
might perhaps be acquired with less labour in the same
period of time, but at least the mental discipline of
learning to compare different idioms and forms of ex-
pression will not have been lost, and method, patience,
and memory have all been exercised. Lastly, the his-
torical reading may also be carried on with little change,
though here again there may be slower progress since
it is probable that the mother may not be able to give
the same degree of personal attention to it as a governess
would. The child will probably read in great measure
alone, while the manner of her reading can be tested
only by questions. I suppose, of course, that her
mother knows each day the portion she has read, and
ten minutes will suffice to glance over the pages doubt-
less already familiar, and to ask such questions both as
to the narrative itself,—the geography or contemporary
chronology,—and any matter hard to be understood, as
will make it quite clear whether the child has read
carelessly or with attention. When the pupil is forced
to read by herself, it should be an invariable rule that
she should write down at the time any word of which
she requires an explanation, or make a note of any
difficulty. When in the course of examination it
becomes apparent that this has not been done, but that
points have been slurred over with a confused half-
apprehension of their meaning, the indolence or indiffer-
256
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION..
ence should be earnestly pointed out and reproved. The
additional labour of being made to work in this manner
will compensate, in great measure, as regards the prin-
cipal objects of female education, for the greater amount
of knowledge to be gained under more favourable cir-
cumstances for instruction.
With regard to reading out-loud during the after-
noon needlework, it is probable that a mother may
not be able to spare time from other family duties for
such a custom, but she can arrange that the children
should work while she is working herself, or one of
them can read whether she be present or not; she will
of course know what book is read, and by making it
the topic of conversation, whenever opportunity offers,
she will sufficiently ascertain the degree of attention
that has been given to the reading, and of thought that
it has suggested.
The education in practical things which may be
given under such circumstances ought to be of con-
siderable value. A child of twelve years old cannot
do much, but she can acquire some useful notions
which it would be more difficult to give if she were
surrounded by the means and appliances of wealth,
and some habits which in the latter case could be culti-·
vated only by means of study. For instance, the value
of time-of money-of punctuality-of order will be
more early and practically learned when a child sees
her mother anxiously and carefully attending to and
providing for the many wants of her household, and only
enabled to do so by working with great regularity and
She will learn the value of being useful
economy.
and active by seeing those qualities daily exhibited
among things she understands, and by early feeling
the pleasure of giving help herself.
So with other
PRACTICAL TRAINING.
257
habits; she will learn to observe carefully and accu-
rately, for she may perhaps be employed in sundry
household matters which require inspection, com-
parison, and judgment. She will learn attention by
having things trusted to her care for which she feels
responsible, and her patience may be exercised in the
same manner, for sometimes a tiresome task of needle-
work must be accomplished, sometimes a sick child
must be watched while the nurse is busy, or perhaps a
little brother or sister taught to read. All these
things, which are likely to claim the attention of girls
at a very early age under the circumstances we are
speaking of, and which undoubtedly are too often mere
desultory interruptions to proper school-room studies,
may, if properly managed, become direct means of
mental discipline. There must necessarily be less
study, and therefore less foundation of knowledge, but
there will be no hindrance to that important part of
education which concerns fitting the various faculties
for future work, whether intellectual or among the
active duties of life.* If indeed the mother be not
equal to this task of directing her children's studies, of
giving them instruction, and drawing out their minds
in conversation, I know no remedy; but neither, under
ordinary conditions of health, do I know any excuse.
From the time she had children she knew under what
circumstances she would be obliged to educate them,
and she had twelve years to prepare for the work we
are now considering! What would not even two
hours of daily systematic reading have done in twelve
years ? in the name of what other duty can this duty
have been neglected?
* See remarks on this subject, chap. ii. p. 85.
S
258
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Section 4.-Many persons object to holidays as too
complete an interruption of the accustomed routine,
but that very interruption recommends them to me.
Such periodical tests of the habits, which routine has
striven to enforce, must be useful to those who are
watching the real progress of the education. The dis-
cipline of education is valuable just so far as it fits the
young for self-regulation; but it is well that they should
occasionally try their strength, and also taste the joys
of freedom, lest when restraint is permanently with-
drawn the untried pleasure should leave no room for
prudence or moderation. The unfortunate custom of
continual superintendence with girls is no doubt one.
cause that they are seldom allowed holidays; even when
the governess is absent to enjoy hers, arrangements
are generally made with great solicitude to provide that
the lessons shall be interrupted as little as possible
during her absence, and especially that the girls should
not be left to themselves. Yet this is the very point
that would make the holidays desirable. The real
tastes and character will then show themselves; the
amusements, the occupation, the mode of spending
time, whether in activity or indolence, -all afford
Errors and
precious indications to the educator.
follies may be committed, but these may themselves
be turned to advantage, by pointing out to the child
the faults in disposition or habits whence they have
arisen, and by making her feel how much she owes to
the habitual restraint which prevents such weakness.
from being frequently exhibited, and tends by that
repression to give strength to opposite habits. This
should not be done in the tone of severity or rebuke,
or it would lose all its value; but by gently and pri-
vately talking the matters over, as if assured that the
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
259
child's understanding and honest desire to do right are
sincerely interested in the success of her education.
I would then propose a weekly half-holiday, which
may conveniently be fixed for the day on which the
weekly examinations have already broken the usual
order of occupation, and besides these a fortnight twice
in the year of absolute freedom from school-room obli-
gations. The time most convenient for these must
vary in different families; an excursion away from
home or the absence of the governess offer suitable
opportunities; but the circumstance that should mostly
determine it, is the period of a brother's holidays from
school.
I have always been at a loss to understand upon
what principle brothers and sisters are kept so much
apart as they are in many families. Nature brought
them together under the same rule, the same care,
under the influence of the same associations, and sharing
the same affections; and at the very period when all
these things are beginning to tell most powerfully upon
character, those children nursed in the same cradle are
separated as though they scarcely belonged to the same
family. Accordingly all the good they might do to
each other is lost. Girls grow up too exclusively
within the circle of feminine interests and pursuits,
while boys remain strangers to the gentler influences
which should tell upon them, and are wild, selfish, and
ill-mannered, without any other check than what the
parents' direct authority may give. Unbounded indul-
gence and little or no tenderness is the strange maxim
on which many parents act with their sons; wishing to
give them pleasure while they can, and dreading to
soften the nature which must be exposed to the hard
trials of the world. But what can be better calculated
S 2
260
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
to stifle feeling and cultivate selfishness? Unbounded
tenderness rather should be lavished upon the young
creature to whom the world will teach hardness enough,
and parents might then venture to be more sparing of
that indulgence, which would no longer be in the boy's
mind the measure of affection. It may seem that
these remarks are irrelevant to my subject, but they
tend to illustrate the erroneous principles which have
been so commonly acted upon in education, and which,
though the mode of applying them differs with boys and
girls, are yet fundamentally the same. For instance,
all parents probably desire to make their children's
education a preparation for their future lives; but what
is called preparation? Not cultivation of those quali-
ties which will tend to counteract whatever evils may
await their future career, but rather of those which will
make the evil less felt at the time. Thus boys who
will have to make their own way in a world where all
jostle and contend for their own interests are made
to undergo a hardening process from their early child-
hood, and are sent to school almost out of the nursery,
in order that the public opinion of that miniature world
should assume the place of conscience and teach them
to live without affection. Girls, on the contrary, who
will be exposed to the evils of dependence and idleness,
are prepared for them by being made dependent in
character and frivolous in tastes. It is possible that
by such means some degree of suffering may for a short
time be avoided; the boy will be less pained by the
hardness and selfishness of the world, the girl will not
feel so acutely the sufferings of ennui and restraint;
but is it the object of education to lessen the sensibility
of the human creature to the moral evils of his position?
Would it be well, had fate doomed us to be born under
NARROW VIEWS OF LIFE.
261
a despotism, to teach our children to be slaves in soul
because the slave will be less galled by the weight of
his chain? Yet such is in truth the character of the
preparation that anxious parents think it wise to bestow!
I believe it to be a great disadvantage to girls to be
brought up apart from father or brothers, and a real
misfortune to boys to grow up without the softening
and refining influence of women. The mutual action
and reaction of the different qualities, tastes, and
natural powers of the two sexes is not sufficiently con-
sidered either in education or in society. The feelings
belonging to one single relation in which they stand to
one another have obscured the view of all that fits them,
apart from that, to be fellow-workers in the world, to
cheer and aid each other, to combine the results of
their different experience, and open up their different
circles of interests and sympathy. The vulgar opinion.
that there can be no pure friendship between man and
woman, while it is the expression of a coarse feeling,
also betrays from what a narrow point of view the
subject is considered. Life is twofold, that of the
family and that of the world; and although it be true
that women belong almost entirely to the former, yet
they have a powerful social influence in the latter which
they should be fitted to wield; while it is evident that
men need to be prepared for the one phase of life no
less than for the other. A one-sided education, how-
ever, considers the world alone for boys and home only
for girls. The boy becomes man, and is more and more
engrossed in the selfish ambition or the selfish pleasures
for which he has been trained; the girl passes on to
womanhood more and more immersed in small cares
and trifling pursuits. After a few years of such dis-
cordant modes of life, they are too often jumbled
262
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
together in marriage, according as chance, or money, or
a fever-fit of passion may determine; can we then
wonder that married life, which should be the one type
of perfect happiness on earth, is too often a scene of
suffering, of jarring unsuitabilities and depressing
sacrifice ?
The extreme importance of home influence to boys.
is sufficient to counteract the disadvantages of the very
long holidays given by the public schools. Their
studies are perhaps too much interrupted, but they are
learning to live. I should not however adopt the same
course with girls: they are not able to bear so many
hours of application as boys do at school, and the
period set apart for their education is far shorter, so
that time could not be spared for such long holidays
even were there no other objections to them. A fort-
night or three weeks of complete freedom in the sum-
mer, and a fortnight at Christmas, will ensure to the
children that full enjoyment of home in common which
is so desirable; and beyond that, all the sisters' leisure
hours should as far as possible be spent with their
brothers; riding, walking, skating, or boating with
them, and joining in any games that are suitable to
their strength. In the same way the boys may be
encouraged to share at other times in their sisters'
quieter amusements, to sing, dance, or act charades
with them in the evening, to read the same books and
take interest in the same pursuits.
Under ordinary systems of home management, girls
derive more moral benefit from their brothers' holidays
than the boys themselves. They generally are ready
enough to sacrifice their own pleasure and wishes if
they can make the holidays the happier for their
brothers. This is as it should be: they are learning
UNHEALTHY FEELING.
263
the immense pleasure of serving those they love. But
if their sacrifices are received as a matter of course, if
they are made to feel that because they are girls every-
thing is expected from them, while the selfishness for
which they would be reproved is in like manner accepted
as a matter of course from the boys, they are learning
a bad lesson. Whatever tends with the young of
either sex to lower their opinion of the other is an evil.
When therefore girls have learnt to bend before the ill-
temper or selfish habits of their brothers, and to feel
that they must expect at their hands a mode of treat-
ment which would revolt them in companions of their
own sex, they have laid the foundation for many a
painful error in after life.
;.
264
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
CHAPTER VI.
STUDIES AND GENERAL
MANAGEMENT FROM
FOURTEEN TO SIXTEEN.
SECTION 1.-During the two years we have lately
been considering, from the age of twelve to four-
teen, we have seen our pupil, still a child, brought
gradually into habits of application and regular study;
and in the two following years we may hope to reap the
benefit of that labour, and to see the young girl leaving
behind her the faults and weaknesses of childhood, and
coming to more laborious tasks with an earnest and
willing spirit.
In some
These
The hours of study may be gradually increased each
year; but I believe that in general it will not be judi-
cious to allow of more than five hours and a half of
application during this period, when health is often un-
certain and rapid growth produces languor.
cases even five hours may be found too much.
are points which require constant watching, and on
which no peremptory rules can be laid down. When
health is good, steady work must be exacted; but so long
as we guard carefully against frivolity of tastes or pur-
suits, a period of comparative idleness, if necessary, will
prove no injury.
The same general division of the day will continue ;
the early hour of rising, the early breakfast and mid-
day meal, whether dinner or luncheon. If luncheon,
and that girls dine late with their parents, the latter
DIVISION OF THE DAY.
265
will, of course, be careful that it does not lead to late
hours at night. At this age there. should never be
less than eight hours' sleep; consequently girls must be
in bed at ten o'clock, for the early morning hours are
on no account to be sacrificed. Later, when the claims
of society begin to interfere, and it becomes necessary
to conform in some measure to the habits of others, it
is only too probable that the early rising will be given
up to later hours at night; it is expedient therefore to
make it as fixed a habit as we can. When the period
of growth is over, eight hours' sleep is more than the
generality of persons really require for health; some
additional time at night may, therefore, be allowed
then without altering the morning hours allotted to
occupation.
The increased time of study during the two years we
are considering, can be taken either before breakfast or
in the afternoon, according to circumstances. Three
hours' consecutive application is still quite sufficient,
and a considerable break should intervene before lessons
begin again; while one hour and a half is the utmost that
should be given uninterruptedly to one subject. Atten-
tion to these apparently trifling regulations enables.
the mind to bear greater labour at a far less cost of
fatigue. Study should never be prolonged till a feel-
ing of settled weariness comes on; for unless there be
freshness and alacrity at the close of the lessons, there
will be languor and perhaps nervous depression in the
whole frame, which will prevent the exercise or recrea-
tion that follow from having their due effect in recruit-
ing body and mind.
Needlework ought no longer to be wanted as a daily
task, for if a girl has been properly taught she will be
as perfect in all its useful branches as any gentlewoman
266
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
can require, and will have some notion of economical
cutting out a province of the sempstress' art which is
too often neglected, even in teaching that class to whom
it would be most essential. All that ought to be re-
quired now is that the young girl should keep her own.
wardrobe in perfect order and repair, and occasionally
make new things for the sake of keeping up the prac-
tice of what she has learnt. Many a rainy day will
afford a convenient opportunity for this, while the work
that neatness requires may be reserved for one afternoon
in the week, when one hour will more than suffice in
general for all that ought to be wanted in a wardrobe.
that is never neglected. Supposing this task to be
assigned to the same day fixed for the weekly examina-
tions, the other five days remain undisturbed in their
regular course.
With regard to music, as the time is not yet come.
when the voice can be fairly tried, the daily half hour
of practice should still continue, unless there should be
that decided indifference or dislike to music which
makes it evident that even the power of singing would
prove no inducement to cultivate the art. If such be
the case, it would be mere waste of time to continue
the daily practising. The latter will have done good
service at an earlier period, as I explained before; but
now we have subjects enough to exercise application
and perseverance, and no time to spare for what is to
be of no ultimate use. On the other hand, if decided
talent and love for music show themselves at this age,
another half hour should be given to it, which may be
a complete addition to the regular time of study.
Music, especially when there is this decided love and
facility for it, is no such severe mental exercise as to be
prejudicial to health when confined within the limits I
VALUE OF REAL LOVE FOR ANY ART. 267
propose; and as the pupil will thus be making the volun-
tary sacrifice of half an hour taken from the time at
her own disposal, we have an additional security that
real love of the art and not dislike to some drier study
prompts the exertion. Undoubted talent or great love
for the art afford the only warrant for giving time, when
time has become valuable, to either music or drawing.
First-rate teaching and very assiduous study will cer-
tainly produce a considerable degree of excellence even
where no such talent exists, but I doubt if they will
ensure real pleasure either to the student herself or to
those who judge her performances. The excellence
will be purely mechanical, and true expression, which
is the life of art, will ever be wanting to it. We listen
to the brilliant playing, or look at the finished draw-
ings, and admire; but they touch no chord of feeling;
while our very hearts are stirred by many a simple
strain, poured out by one whose fingers obey the im-
pulse of the soul; by many a sketch where a few im-
perfect touches reveal that the scene had been felt before
the pencil recorded its features.
When accomplishments of this kind usurp the name
of education, it is impossible to denounce them too
severely; but they rank deservedly high among amuse-
ments. And in the often lonely and depressed lives of
women, the power of music, at once soothing and ex-
hilarating, is far beyond mere amusement. When,
therefore, there is real taste for it, it should never be set
aside as of no value. Where there is both talent and
love for any art, they also afford valuable means of cul-
tivating the imagination. Love of drawing will be-
come the centre of widely-spreading associations; it
will reveal the inward poetry of nature, and add very
greatly to some of the most healthy and innocent en-
268
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
joyments of life.
Whatever is a spontaneous impulse
of the mind becomes one of the forms in which all that
is beautiful in thought and feeling will naturally ex-
press itself, while it kindles the sense of beauty and
delight where other minds remain cold and insensible.
The real enthusiast in any pursuit will speak with poetic
fervour of what to others is uninviting, even at times.
repulsive; and whatever will thus touch the inmost
chords of intellectual life deserves to be cared for in
education.
It will perhaps be said that the utmost time I have
allowed for music,-or for drawing, if music be aban-
doned,-will never enable the student to acquire great
perfection. It is possible that she will not on her
entrance into society come forward as a finished artist,
nor do I think it desirable that she should, since
drawing-room display is not the object for which I
should wish any art to be acquired. But with real
talent there will be proficiency enough to give true.
pleasure, and that proficiency will increase. When the
expense of a governess is no longer needed, there will
be more money to spend on good masters if necessary.
Parents may regret in some moment of weakness that
their daughter's performance is not equal to what more
assiduous cultivation might have made it; but if they
have resolutely forborne sacrificing any of the real
merits of a governess to the temptation of securing a
good musical teacher, they will be rewarded by seeing
that the innate taste will develope itself even under
unfavourable circumstances; and at eighteen there is
abundant time before them to cultivate any natural
power when earlier studies have come to a close.
this we may be sure, that any girl of eighteen who
without rare genius has attained a high degree of excel-
Of
TWO ACCOMPLISHMENTS INADMISSIBLE.
269
lence in any art, must have done so at the expense of
studies which ought to have occupied the time given to
the accomplishment. The education has had for its
object the drawing-room display, which secures the
triumph of a few hours at the cost of what would have
embellished a life. In the same manner a young
governess whose capacity as an artist is to be the test
of her fitness, is thereby giving the most convincing
proof of her unfitness for undertaking the charge of
education.
For the cultivation of two accomplishments even
great talent will seldom be found sufficient without the
sacrifice of an unwarrantable amount of time.
If a
girl shows equal love and aptitude for music and draw-
ing, I would cultivate the former and let the latter be
postponed till school-room studies are over. Drawing has
this advantage, that it does not require early training,
which the mechanical difficulties of music render in-
dispensable; under no circumstances should both be
admitted.
This long digression, which has kept us from the
consideration of the course of study to be pursued at
this age, is forced upon us by the blind devotion to
accomplishments which must be combated in detail as
well as denounced in general terms. If parents would
honestly say, 'I do not care for education; I only wish
my daughter to play or draw well, for the sake of being
admired in society,' the practice would be far less per-
nicious, for no one would be misled. Parents would
not suppose, nor lead others to suppose, that they have
laboriously achieved a task they never cared to begin,
and girls would have the open acknowledgment of their
ignorance to temper the conceit of their success in
accomplishments. So long as things are called by their
270
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
right names they are but half armed for mischief, but
when they assume honoured designations to win the
respect of the unwary, we cannot too often or too mer-
cilessly expose the mischievous imposition.
The department of historical reading, which occupied
a considerable space during the last two years, will now
be omitted for a time, or reduced, at least, to very
trifling dimensions. The previous course will, it may
be hoped, have fixed in the reader's memory a correct
outline of ancient history and of the national histories of
the principal countries in Europe, with a skeleton map
of chronology, such as will afford every facility for the
acquisition of fresh knowledge. With this we must
be satisfied for the present, taking care only by frequent
reference and examination, that what has been learnt.
be not forgotten, and still as we read upon other sub-
jects adding to the chronological groups, arranged ac-
cording to the method before suggested, any interesting
fact, whether in literature or science or biography,
whose date it is important to remember. All such
additions will tend to strengthen the links of association
which bind the whole in the memory. The more com-
plete this view of contemporary chronology can be ren-
dered without confusing or overloading the memory,
the more interesting and profitable will historical read-
ing be hereafter; since the reader will at every step
find familiar landmarks, instead of toiling on ignorant
of all that spreads far and wide beyond the one track
she is following.
The reason for discontinuing regular historical read-
ing at this period is, that the pupil's mind is still too
unformed for reading detailed history with profit.
Short works devoid of political theory or philosophical
speculation were sufficient to give the skeleton know-
STUDY OF SCIENCE.
271
ledge which for many reasons it is desirable to acquire
early; but further historical reading must have a moral
and philosophical purpose or it is
matter of harmless entertainment.
speak of, the mind is not ripe for such considerations
as these.
useless, except as a
And at the age we
The studies of these two years will be divided be-
tween grammar and composition, and an elementary
course of science, including mathematics; thus two hours
and a half daily might be given to each during the first
year, and half an hour added during the latter for
whichever branch of reading most required it—taking
now and then half an hour from one or the other for
geography or chronological tables.
If geometry was begun in the preceding year, some
progress will already have been made; if not, it should
be commenced at fourteen. I do not propose carrying
it further than the three first books of Euclid. Algebra
may be begun at the same time or may follow, as the
teacher judges most expedient. In this I do not pro-
pose going beyond quadratic equations, the whole object
being, as I said before, to give some idea of the nature
of symbols and the mode of working with them. Let
the ground thus traversed be gone over and over again,
if necessary, till the knowledge and more especially the
principles thus acquired have become stamped upon
the mind; and utterly insignificant as such studies are
to the mathematician, they will have done all we can
hope to do at that age. They will have exercised the
mind through a rigid discipline at the time when its
capacity is unfolding and the power of thought and
speculation beginning to come into activity, and we
may hope that a more vigorous and accurate tone will
be due to that influence. Here however, as I remarked
272
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
before, it will depend on the teacher whether that
influence spreads beyond the lesson hours. If loose
reasoning, inaccurate statement, hasty inferences, and
similar faults of unreasoning minds are allowed in other
matters whether of study or action, it will be of little
avail to the young mind to have learned the most per-
fect method of scientific demonstration, except so far
as it may be needed in following some scientific pursuit.
But this is a very small part of the object for which
the magnificent prerogative of human nature, the gift
of reason, claims to be cultivated.
I have stated in the second chaptert what branches
of science it appears most desirable to give some slight
knowledge of, and have explained my reasons for so
doing, and the particular benefit I hoped might accrue
from each. I shall here only name the books which
appear to me best fitted for our purpose; but so many
are now written with a view to make the first steps in
science easy, that many more and perhaps some better
might be pointed out; this must be left to the judg-
ment of teachers, who are themselves well versed in
these subjects. Very elementary and inexpensive
works will suffice to give as much information as we
can hope to obtain in an early educational course. We
may expect that the pupil will acquire from them clear
and accurate conceptions of the nature and purpose of
each science they treat of, knowledge of the principles
on which it is founded, and of the leading facts and
laws that have been ascertained. Works such as I
would recommend present the mere alphabet of science,
but if these are not merely read, but studied, till the
fundamental principles are completely mastered and
* Chap. v. p. 209.
† See sect. 2.
1
NATURAL HISTORY.
273
the terms and definitions rendered familiar, subsequent
scientific reading will lose half its difficulty. The
understanding will be free to follow more abstruse
reasoning without the attention being distracted by the
half-confused remembrance of the earlier steps on which
it is founded; while the positive knowledge gained,
small as it is, opens the mind to the perception of a
whole new range of truths, and can hardly fail to inspire
the wish to know more.
Natural history is perhaps the most generally inte-
resting to the young; some one of its many branches
may then be chosen for a beginning. Zoology appears
to me the most advisable, not only on account of the
interest of animal life, but as being intimately con-
nected with physiology, which should come next in our
course of reading. Patterson's Zoology for Schools is
an excellent elementary work and exactly represents
the form of knowledge which I conceive such a course
of reading as I am now recommending should give.
The matter of the work, the classification and general
arrangement of the subject, are such as the great masters
have given them, but we have them briefly stated in a
clear and simple manner, and facts and results which
the young mind can grasp are presented without the
abstruse reasoning or detailed research which would
only puzzle and make the darkness of ignorance darker
still.
After this book has been thoroughly studied I would
proceed to the small volume on Animal Physiology in
Chambers's Educational Course; which in like manner
gives clearly and succinctly the facts and principles
which must be the foundation of further knowledge.
When these two works have been completely mas-
tered, the pupil may turn to geology unless a very
T
DorM
274
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
decided taste for some further study of natural history
should show itself. The pleasure of indulging such a
taste is the surest incentive to the pursuit of know-
ledge; education has, therefore, accomplished one of
its chief aims when it has developed the natural bent
of the mind. But if this should not be the case,
then we may begin Lyell's Principles of Geology. I
know no work more likely to awaken in the young
mind the perception of the vastness of the regions of
knowledge, or to give a better view of the spirit in
which they should be explored. Some of the subjects
closely connected with geology and the alphabet of the
science itself will have been made familiar to the pupil
by the small work on Physical Geography recommended
in the last chapter.* The great use of such compen-
diums is to give that accurate groundwork which facili-
tates the reading of larger treatises; certainly, without
some such introduction, Lyell's work might be unfit
for the beginner; with it, I believe we may safely take
it up.
All the points taught in Reid, and much that
has been learned in zoology, will here be dwelt upon
again more widely and deeply; the same kind of know-
ledge will be constantly referred to, and the more often
the same subjects are brought before the student's
mind under a different form of connexion, and con-
sidered from a different point of view, the more they
tend to enlarge the perceptions, while they become at
the same time fixed in the memory by so many addi-
tional links of association.
I have purposely left astronomy to the last among
the sciences I propose to glance at, because it seems
best to allow the mind to gain some benefit from
* Elements of Physical Geography. By Hugo Reid.
Maol
ASTRONOMY.
275
mathematical instruction before taking up a subject so
built upon mathematical reasoning. I too well know
that no study of mathematics which would be practicable
in female education will enable the pupil to follow that
reasoning, but the qualities trained by even a very
slight course of geometry will make the conditions of
an exact science intelligible, and the grandeur of
astronomy is thus unfolded with the conviction of its
certainty.
Again, Reid's excellent compendium will be found to
have done a useful work in familiarizing the pupil with
some of the primary facts of the science, and their con-
nexion with the condition of the globe we inhabit. So pre-
pared, we may proceed to Professor Airy's Lectures on
Astronomy,* which give the simplest and clearest exposi-
tion I know, of the facts and laws of the science he has
himself mastered in all its depths. When this short work
has been thoroughly studied, The Orbs of Heaven, by
Mitchell, might be read with advantage. The style is
both flowery and diffuse, faults peculiarly objectionable in
a work on science; still the subject is presented under an
aspect likely to interest the young, and to kindle imagi-
nation and the desire for further knowledge, and these
are qualities which must, for our purpose, be allowed to
redeem literary defects; the more so as this work pre-
sents a view of the progress of the science from the
earliest times, and there is no other history of astro-
nomy, as far as I know, which is at all fit for the young
student; yet the lessons taught by the history of a
* Originally printed for private circulation only, but since pub-
lished. The Mechanism of the Heavens, or Familiar Illustrations
of Astronomy, by Denison Olmsted, of Gale College, is also highly
spoken of.
T 2
276
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
science are often scarcely less valuable than those de-
rived from the science itself. It is there that we see the
examples of unwearied patience, of calm untiring love
of truth which no failure can da at, no prevailing dark-
ness rob of its faith in the coming light. It is there
that we see how in the course of time that which was
false falls away, while the element of truth that was
wrapped up in the error and gave it power to live for
a time, expands and becomes clearer and clearer as
knowledge accumulates and is brought to bear from
different sources. There, especially, we have unfolded
to us the value of method, when we see that after men
had groped in the dark for generations, or caught now
at one, now at another brilliant conjecture, a new light
seems poured in when the right method of investigation
is discovered, and soon ordinary minds are enabled to
reach what before eluded the grasp of genius. These
are the great lessons which make the history of science
so valuable a contribution to mental discipline; it must
be the task of the teacher to enforce them; in this, as
in every other department of education, the teacher
is of more consequence than the books she makes
use of.
It is difficult to lay down any rules about the time
that may be required for the careful reading and study
of the books I have mentioned. The course of ele-
mentary science will be completed with instruction in
the principles of mechanics, and the last treatise pub-
lished by Dr. Lardner will be found well adapted for
the purpose.
This may, however, be left for a later
period, should there be the least apparent risk of pro-
ducing a sense of hurry or confusion in the young
reader's mind; while, on the contrary, should this
not be the case, I would recommend reading those
CONNEXION OF DIFFERENT STUDIES. 277
parts of Mrs. Marcet's Conversations on Natural Philo-
sophy which refer to subjects closely connected with
but not comprised in our course, such as optics and
hydrostatics.
Even the subjects I have mentioned, few as they are
compared with the range of science, and cursorily as
they can be studied, would, if really distinct, or rather
isolated one from the other, undoubtedly have an in-
jurious effect on the mind. But the connexion is so
intimate of the laws and facts of astronomy with the
principles of mechanics, by whose aid some of the
greatest of those laws were established, with the history
of the earth and its present condition influenced by the
other parts of the solar system, and finally with the
various forms of animal life developed under the various
conditions of climate, geographical and geological for-
mation and atmospheric influences, that the views pre-
sented, however various, will rather tend to concentrate
than to scatter either attention or interest.
Grammatical studies will begin to assume a new
character during the period now under consideration.
We have supposed the pupil to have acquired some
knowledge and command of one foreign language, at
least, whether dead or living; perhaps both Latin and
French have been learnt, or under favourable circum-
stances in early childhood, acquaintance with German
may also have been acquired. But whatever number
of languages may have been learnt, or in whatever
manner, whether by means of books or conversation,
mere verbal studies should be at an end now.
cannot, after fourteen, afford time for vocabularies;
their work should be finished, and the pupil ready
to begin the comparison between the grammar and
composition of the different languages she knows,
We
278
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
together with some study of their literature. Nothing,
therefore, should have been undertaken before which
could not be brought to this degree of forwardness
by the time I speak of, and the indulgence of any wish
to learn other languages should be postponed till school-
room studies are over.
The study of language itself is the object now, and
English the groundwork of the study, upon which the
comparison with other languages and reference par-
ticularly to the more rigid grammatical forms of Latin,
will throw light.
Trench On the Study of Words; English, Past
and Present, by the same author; and Archbishop
Whately's English Synonyms, will be found most
useful works at this period, and they may be followed
by Dr. Latham's History of the English Language.
Works, or parts of works, in different departments of
literature should now be read with a view to style, and
to changes in the language at different periods; and a
comparison of English with French writers on the same
subjects, that is, comparing tragedy with tragedy,
oratory with oratory,—will unfold differences in the
genius and capabilities of the two languages, as well as
lead to many interesting remarks on national differences
of taste or feeling.
Works of criticism should also be read to help in
forming the taste upon some settled principles. Blair's
Lectures, for instance, with much that is feeble and
useless, contain a great deal that is valuable.
We are,
unfortunately, poor in this class of works, but even
when those we read cannot be trusted implicitly, they
teach the art of critical reading, and turn attention
to a number of points that would otherwise be passed
over by the unpractised. Much may be gained in this
LITERATURE.
279
way, as a mental exercise, from a book in whose indi-
vidual opinions we may perhaps rarely or never coincide.
Addison's papers on Milton* are too well known to re-
quire recommendation; they, of course, should be care-
fully studied. Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses on
Painting are also of great value; they tend to enlarge
the student's conception of the aim of composition, and
of the true principles of excellence, by showing how
far the standard of real beauty is alike in every depart-
ment of human effort which speaks to the feelings and
imagination. For the same reason, Dubos' Sur la
Poesie et la Peinture may be consulted with advantage,
although selections only from it would be desirable for
a school-room course.
In this, more than perhaps in any other study, we
depend on the knowledge and taste of the teacher; for
we are not only, as I said before, deficient in good
works of criticism, but we have no standard history of
English literature. Villemain's Cours de Littérature
Française may be made good use of; his taste is pure,
his feeling of the high importance and purpose of
literature strong, and his knowledge of English litera-
ture being considerable, his comparison of the writers
of both countries is valuable. It is true that it em-
braces the eighteenth century only, or throws a mere
cursory glance at the preceding period by way of intro-
duction to his main subject; but the view he presents of
the English writers since the Restoration may assist
the teacher in giving instruction concerning the greater
writers of a former period. In the absence of good
works, she must herself select portions from our dif
* Spectator. Saturday Papers, from No. 297, Feb. 9, 1711-12, to
No. 369, May 3, 1712.
280
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
*
ferent great writers, to be read in chronological order,
thus presenting to the pupil's view not only the beauties
and defects of each, but changes in the language, in the
mode of treating subjects, and in the prevailing tone of
thought and sentiment at different periods. As an out-
line, Reed's Lectures on English Literature are useful,
although his own style is flowery and wordy, and his
taste and judgment too much swayed by considerations.
that do not belong to literary criticism. He falls too
frequently, for instance, into that modern error of
making the ethical tone of the sentiments expressed
the criterion of poetic excellence, dwelling upon theories
and opinions, and overlooking the metre, the language,
the imagery, which constitute the form of poetry, and
are the essential embodiment of poetic thought. If we
are to be independent of these, let us, at least, have the
simplicity of prose. Still, Reed's book is a valuable
contribution for educational purposes. Johnson's Lives
of the Poets will, of course, be consulted; poor and
meagre as are his criticisms of Milton, and even of
Shakespeare, they are relieved by some noble pas-
sages, and they cannot be omitted. Campbell's Speci-
mens of the British Poets will be found occasionally
useful, and likewise Lamb's Specimens of the Dramatic
Poets, since, unfortunately, the works of the latter can
be made known to women in fragments only. Craik's
History of English Literature is more full and complete
than Reed's lectures, and might be read after them. It
wants the genuine poetic enthusiasm of the American
writer, but it is also free from his defects.
*For this purpose Chambers's English Literature will be found
useful.
† See Preface to Johnson and Steevens' edition.
LITERATURE.
281
If the pupil have the advantage of an acquaintance
with several languages, examples of peculiar excellence
in each will throw fresh light on the study of English.
I have supposed Villemain, for instance, to be read in
this view, as much as for the sake of acquaintance with
the French writers he examines. In the same manner
we may gather from Latin and from German examples.
to illustrate the fact that the standard of beauty and
sublimity in poetry does not depend on the particular
forms of any one language, although the expression of
poetic thought is moulded and may be more or less
favoured by them; as we see, for instance, in comparing
the language of French poetry with our own, what an
incomparably finer instrument we possess for that pur-
pose. Fine poetry in the several languages known to
the pupil should be learnt by heart, and fine expressions
or single lines dwelt upon and remembered. The
pleasure and the real advantage of having the memory
so stored can hardly be exaggerated. Many a lonely
hour, many an hour of illness when body and mind are
too languid for active thought, will pass lightly over as
fancy recalls the images which charmed before; and in
proportion as these lofty pleasures of the imagination
have power over the mind, the hold of the trivial and
the mean will be loosened whether in literature or in
society.
One great object of studying composition is to
acquire the art of writing and speaking well, the latter
especially being singularly neglected in this country,
even by men, who, owing to our institutions and habits,
have such frequent occasion to speak in public.
The tendency of beginners in composition is to aim
at eloquence; and if they have much imagination or
strength of feeling they are in danger of being carried
282
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
away by them, and of falling into sentimentality or
bombast. The object of the teacher must then be to
cultivate the habit of clear, forcible, and appropriate
expression, and of logical order in the matter. To
possess the power of language in its full form and
delicacy, is perhaps as rare as to possess the finer
qualities of thought or imagination; these are given to
very few; but all may learn to clothe their thoughts
in simple, accurate, well-chosen words, and so to
express themselves as to run no risk of being mis-
understood by others, or what is more important still,
of leaving an undetected confusion in their own minds,
for want of being able to bring clearly out, what they
do and what they do not really think or understand.
It is very common with young persons to answer to
any question testing their knowledge by saying that
they understand clearly enough, but cannot explain
themselves. This may or may not really be the case,
but, at any rate, it points to a defect which is within
reach of cure. Either there is a natural slowness or
inaptitude in the use of language, and this, exercise will
undoubtedly remove, at least as far as the purpose of
ordinary intercourse requires; or else there is confusion
of thought, which lurked perhaps unconsciously till the
effort to explain made the existence of some difficulty
apparent, or which the indolent mind, indifferent to
clearness of apprehension, was content to retain, and
which makes the task of explanation irksome and irri-
tating. And in this case also the necessity of finding
intelligible expressions will be beneficial.
In conversation, nervous or timid persons may fre-
quently be unable to make a clear statement; or a bad
memory may prove an insurmountable obstacle; but
there should be no room for these difficulties in the
COMPOSITION.
283
school-room. Ample time can be given there to collect
the thoughts, to get over any trepidation, or to consult
authorities on any point where memory has failed; and
it will be better to give the habit of writing down the
statements required before we tax the power of language
by demanding viva voce answers. Statements of the
opinions or facts advanced by a given author on certain
subjects or abstracts of the day's reading, are, I believe,
better exercises for the kind of composition we desire
to cultivate than writing themes. They are directly
useful as regards the matter, and they offer no temp-
tation to ill-judged flights of imagination. We want
to train the power of language, not to draw out the
expression of crude thoughts. It will be time enough
for original composition when the mind is somewhat
better stored and the intellect more vigorous and
mature. In this point of view, poetic compositions
are more objectionable than prose, for they waste time.
in spinning out poor materials in a form which is only
fit to clothe noble images and conceptions. But as a
mere exercise of language I know nothing better than
translating foreign poetry into English verse. The
difficulties of the metre force a degree of attention to
the language which prose rarely exacts. A variety of
words must be sought,* harmony no less than appro-
priateness must decide the selection, and I believe that
a degree of mastery over the instrument of expression
will be acquired by this means which will tell very
beneficially on prose composition.
* A great deal is learnt by searching out words in a large dictionary,
especially one rich in quotations like Johnson's. We see the etymology
of the word, the manner and sense in which it has been used by good
authors, and the period in which it has been used perhaps in a sense
now obsolete.
284
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
I have said that in requiring statements from a young
person I would begin with having them written, but
when the habit of clear expression and arrangement
has been acquired, it is time to practise the same habit
in speaking. That men should be content in a country
enjoying free institutions to be without the power of
speaking in public, content to string commonplaces
together which make their best friends dread what they
may utter next, is perfectly inconceivable. Women
have no public motives for cultivating this noble form.
of power; but why, because they limit their efforts to
private conversation, should that conversation be con-
fused, disjointed, wanting in that order and clearness
which are among the surest signs of a really cultivated
mind, and wanting also in that grace and felicity of
expression which give a charm to the trifles of familiar
talk? Without going so low as to speak of those who
introduce slang,-the counterfeit wit of coarse and
ignorant minds,-into refined society, how often do we
find the conversation of educated persons disfigured
with unmeaning expletives, empty exclamations, incor-
rect grammar, inaccurate terms, ludicrously exaggerated
epithets, or sayings once grotesque from their very in-
congruity and now simply stupid as repetitions? It
is a perhaps not very uncommon opinion that great
attention to correctness and refinement of language is
pedantic; a charge also brought against the habit of
finishing sentences, instead of leaving a portion of them
to be understood without the trouble of finding words.
No defect is more entirely within the reach of education
to correct than this. If young persons are encouraged
to express themselves freely and never allowed to
express themselves ill;-if the conversation into which
they are drawn to take their part ranges habitually
GOOD CONVERSATION.
285
over a variety of subjects;-and if care is taken to
correct exaggerated or inappropriate language, and to
give that complete habit of ready expression which
overcomes nervousness and timidity, we shall assuredly
succeed in forming the power of easy, refined, and
simple conversation, though we cannot make brilliant
talkers where nature has not bestowed the peculiar gift.
Large sums are spent in the course of education upon
accomplishments; but what accomplishment,-to take
no higher view of it,-is comparable to that of good
conversation? What other talent de societé is so inde-
pendent of exterior advantages, and instead of losing,
improves with years and experience? The matter of
our talk depends of course on knowledge and mental
power, but the manner and the form are dependent on
cultivation. It is not in the matter of their conver-
sation that the French are superior to us, but in their
habitual attention to good language. Those even who
cannot write grammatically will speak with a correct-
ness and elegance which we rarely give ourselves the
trouble to attain. 'L'art de bien causer' is studied
as a social accomplishment of a high order, and the
slovenly incorrectness and want of finish so common in
England, would with them be considered a mark of
under breeding and deficient education. It is strange,
to say the least of it, that so many parents should spare
no trouble or expense to make their daughters sing
like angels, while they are content to let them talk like
fools!
Section 2.-In the last chapter I said that the prac-
tice of making notes from reading should be com-
menced; throughout the course now indicated the notes
286
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
become of great importance, not only as an assistance
to the memory, but as helping to methodize knowledge
and giving the habit of going back in thought over the
matter of the day's reading.
The best method of making notes is a point of con-
siderable difficulty; perhaps among experienced readers
each will have in some respects a way of his own which
he has found best suited to his memory or to certain
purposes he may have in view. In proposing a method
for young students, we must bear in mind two principal
objects: first, that all which is really important, and that
alone, be noted, in a condensed form, with great atten-
tion to accuracy both of statement and reference; and
secondly, that the matter so noted shall be arranged
in an order that makes reference to it perfectly easy.
The copiousness of the notes should depend in some
measure on the nature of the reader's memory. If that
be retentive, the mere heads of a writer's opinions will
be sufficient, with the leading facts or dates that may
occur. Others, less fortunate, cannot trust themselves
to retain the most important and interesting matter
without a clear and somewhat detailed exposition of the
writer's views, and of the facts on which they rest:
and more than this, their own speculations escape them;
the thoughts suggested while reading pass away and are
dropped by a treacherous memory, unless they also are
recorded at the time. These are differences which must
always be known to the teacher. Allowing the pupil at
first to note down what she herself believes to be required,
let the weekly examinations of her reading be made
with her note-book in hand; this will clearly test both
her memory and the degree of industry with which she
has striven to aid it.
The labour of making notes is also affected by the
NOTES FROM READING.
287
circumstance of reading our own or borrowed books.
In the first case, when making a note, a few words in-
dicating the subject, with a reference to the author, are
sufficient; but in the latter case, the passages in ques-
tion must be copied, and often at considerable length,
to make the notes of any value. Under such circum-
stances, I believe the following method will be found
the most effectual. Let one page of the commonplace
book be devoted to the actual notes, whether quotations,
references to passages, or summary of arguments or
facts; and the page opposite be reserved for original
remarks, as, for instance, any difficulty that arises in
the mind about accepting such or such views—any
speculation or reflection that has been suggested. These
may perhaps be copious, while a mere reference is all
that is needed on the other page. In that case the latter
will remain partly blank; or the reverse may happen,
long quotations may have to be copied, while few or no
original remarks are made. The blank spaces are not
without their use, for they facilitate looking over an
otherwise closely written book. If, however, this be con-
sidered an objection, two note-books may be used, the
one for abstracts and quotations, the other for remarks.
In either case the books must be paged, since they
would be of comparatively little use unless reference to
their contents were made in a detached index. By this
means, although matter belonging to one subject may
be scattered through different parts perhaps of several
books according to the order of the reading, the index
will mark every page in which such matter is to be
found. One advantage among others that results from
entering the notes and remarks in the same book is,
that the matter which has suggested the remark and
the remark itself are before the eyes at the same
283
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
moment, without the labour of another reference. The
young reader should never fail to note a difficulty,-a
passage not clearly understood,-a point that requires
clearing up by reference to other books she has not
perhaps at hand at the moment. Things of this sort
should be written in red ink, so as to catch the eye
whenever the book is opened. It should be an essential
point in the teacher's examination to ascertain whether
all these defects in the full apprehension of a subject.
have been conscientiously noted down, and to take oc-
casion on every instance of carelessness to enforce
again the conviction of the utter futility of reading
without caring to obtain a clear and full comprehension
of what we read. When points of this kind have been
cleared up by subsequent reading, let the memorandum
be scratched off; or rather the pen drawn through it,
and reference made in the margin to the page where
the explanation or further information will be found.
At the age we are speaking of, the original remarks
will probably be scanty; the mind is only beginning to
work; subjects are all too new to be very suggestive.
The teacher must beware of encouraging much writing.
What we want is not quantity, but evidence of thought;
and that may be given in a few short sentences or even
words. 'This remark shows observation,' or 'this is a
proof that you have reflected on what you had read,'
such should be the mode of praise. Everything which
denotes love of accuracy should be noted with appro-
bation. When engaged on any science, besides the
method of notes recommended above, careful lists such
as I have mentioned before should be drawn up, con-
sisting of scientific terms with their derivations, heads
of classifications, &c., and these should be committed
to memory and constantly referred to till the know-
LEARNING TO THINK.
289
ledge they contain appears to be indelibly impressed
on the mind. Much of the difficulty that persons who
read a little science experience in following reasonings
or expositions of a subject, arises from having a more
or less confused recollection or apprehension of this
primary knowledge. It is a golden rule of study to
grapple with one difficulty at a time; we must not there-
fore be puzzled with words while trying to understand
a theory.
It is possible that some persons may think the
system I have indicated needlessly laborious for read-
ing which has no literary purpose in view, and still more
for the school-room reading of girls of fourteen or fif-
teen. But the question is, will a less toilsome method
enable the mind to retain more surely and readily the
fruits of study? Those who read to pass the time
require no such labour, for their purpose is accom-
plished when the hours are passed over; they may turn
from one book to another, and read on their journeys
and in their gardens and in the evenings, and wonder
at a friend who can spend an hour in thought, doing
nothing, as they express it; such readers may spare
themselves all the trouble which I have spoken of as
necessary. But those who read to acquire knowledge
and to improve their faculties have no other measure
of trouble than what best ensures attaining that end.
As a question of labour, therefore, we need not con-
sider it at all, unless some equally or more effectual
method can be suggested at a slighter cost of time.
Before leaving this subject, I may remark that the
habit of thinking is not made as much as it might be a
direct object of education. It is, doubtless, one of the
most difficult, but something might be done. Many
persons can attend closely to a book, or even work out
U
290
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
their own thoughts tolerably if obliged to write them
down, who are unable to think out a subject. Patient,
solitary thought is what they never devote any time to,
and yet nothing so ripens the mind as this revolving of
knowledge and evolving of speculation, which, at first
dim and uncertain, gradually clears as attention is fixed
upon it, and attains those definite proportions which
enable us at least to discern whether it be true or false,
-new or merely new-clad,-promising or worthless.
Many a half-formed opinion and views hovering between
the uncertain and the false, have gained influence in that
cloudy state which they would have lost over any honest
mind had they been thought into decided shape, till it
became clear what stuff they were made of. Women
who often have little time for study, or at any rate for
reducing their own speculations to writing, have, in
general, much time for thought. Were it then only as
a shield against frivolous desultory wandering when the
fingers are engaged and the mind unoccupied, it would
be a most valuable habit to cultivate in girls. When
they are somewhat accustomed to write their own re-
flections, or what they have gained from a given portion
of reading, the teacher may begin to question them in
conversation on some point, and then let them think
over it at their leisure, and state the result orally. In
point of language and method of statement the exercise
so carried on from time to time will also be found most
useful. Points will frequently occur in the course of
the examinations on which the pupil may have no
ready answer; they can be left to be thought over, and
the result given later or another day. The period
considered in this chapter may perhaps be too early for
an exercise of this nature, as there can be few begin-
nings of opinion yet; but of this the teacher must
DIARIES.
291
judge. If the exercise of thought leads merely to the
detection of confusion, it is, as I said above, of immense
benefit.
The difficult lesson of persevering regularity, which
is learned by the habit of doing the same thing daily,
has been frequently urged as an excuse for making
young people keep journals; but the latter are so apt
to degenerate into records of sentiment or of trifling,
that I think them in their ordinary form very objec-
tionable. In the still and monotonous life of women,
feelings tend so irresistibly to occupy a large place, and
to enlist imagination on their side, that I would dis-
courage all allusion to personal feeling in diaries. The
latter to be useful should be journals of reading and
thought only; if a different tone is allowed, the door is
opened to sentiment and sickly fancy, and every subtle
enemy of woman's cheerfulness. If it be made a prac-
tice to record daily the mere events and occupations of
the day, the number of hours spent in study, changes
of residence, &c., a few minutes will suffice, and a mere
enlargement of this daily plan is required in case of a
journey, an interesting conversation, or of any other re-
markable circumstance which requires notice.
If one
or more foreign languages are perfectly familiar, it may
be as well to write either notes or diary occasionally in
one or the other; the practice keeps up the use of the
language without any additional labour. Notes from
foreign books naturally suggest the use of the language
we are quoting from, but it must be completely familiar,
otherwise the pupil might get into a habit of incorrect
writing, or, being embarrassed with verbal difficulties,
lose sight of the main object of keeping the notes.
The plan of study here recommended is so inexpen-
sive compared to the usual labour of acquiring accom-
1
U 2
292
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
plishments, that it still requires but little alteration in
any of its important points for persons to whom eco-
nomy is an object. Foreign languages must perhaps
be abandoned, or French be studied, as I remarked in
the last chapter, by a less advantageous method. It
may likewise be difficult to give as much time to the
study of literature and composition. But instruction in
elementary mathematics may be obtained very cheaply,
and the books I have indicated as introductions to
science are all of low price. Five pounds will more
than cover the expense of the works here pointed out
for the study of two years. If unable to pay a
thoroughly instructed governess, the mother will have
to undergo great additional labour; and if circumstances
of any kind unfit her for undertaking the office of
teacher, there will, undoubtedly, be much advantage
lost in not studying under good tuition. Still, this
may be partly compensated by making the mind put
forth its strength in working alone; morally and intel-
lectually it will be braced by the exertion.
Section 3.-At the age we are now considering, the
formation of character is going on step by step with the
cultivation of the intellect. The earlier stages of teach-
ing, which are addressed almost exclusively to the
memory, have a slight and indirect effect only upon
the disposition; hence the little that can be effected by
schools for the poor, where the children are taken away
at an early age, before the influence of improved intel-
ligence begins to tell. But when education has reached
that point when all its efforts tend to draw out the
reasoning power, to force reflection, and to form opinion,
then each change in the intellectual condition of our
pupil influences the tone of moral character whether we
HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT.
293
will or no. A careless, one-sided system of education
may thus, by overlooking this fact, produce harm from
what should have been productive of unmixed good;
for wherever a powerful source of influence exists, it
cannot remain inoperative; if not turned into the right
channel it will work mischief in the wrong one. Accord-
ingly, we too often see that increasing knowledge, when
not brought by the education to bear upon moral points,
appears to stimulate the selfish motives only; it becomes
power to gratify our own tastes or inclinations, and leads
naturally to contempt for qualities which have not that
end in view. Duty, left out of sight, sinks in estima-
tion compared with that which is kept prominently for-
ward as an object of ambition and delight, and moral
deterioration is the direct consequence. It is the func-
tion of education to preserve a right balance between
all our faculties, and ensure their harmonious de-
velopment; thus in proportion as intellectual activity
grows more intense, the moral nature must be more
strongly stimulated; a higher standard of action and
principle must be made to grow out of the new
mental capacity unfolding day by day. The more
power of observation, or reasoning, or reflection is
evinced by the young girl, the more may we require
her to give evidence of those qualities in practical
things whether great or small, in views of duty and
in daily conduct. Where this direction is given and
carefully maintained, we may trust that in all ordinarily
well-constituted minds, increased moral power will
accompany the expansion of the intellect.
Some points of character that require careful watch-
ing at this age, have been spoken of in a former chap-
ter ;* but the real work of this period is the conversion
* Chap. iii.
294
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
1
of routine into principle, and of the habit of obedience
into the power of self-guidance. The latter is the ulti-
mate object of all education. Without this power the
best disposed are creatures of impulse or of outward
circumstances. We all feel that human nature is
lowered in that being whose own sense of right is not
the law of his actions, and yet there is scarcely any con-
sistent effort made in education to cultivate a strong
spirit of self-regulation. Even with little children,
where strict obedience is so necessary, it should never,
as I have before observed, be enforced in a manner that
tends to break down the power of the will; we must
respect in the rebellious instinct of the child that ele-
ment which is the germ of vigour in the man. Madame
Guizot remarks truly, in her letters on Education, that
one will only can always govern the human creature,
and that will must be his own.*
The neglect of this view in education is doubtless
in great measure owing to the indolence or ignorance
of teachers, for it is incomparably easier to insist upon
submission to rules than to cultivate the spirit which.
shall frame right rules for itself. But there has also
been a curiously mistaken idea that decision and vigour
are out of place in female character, and therefore that
in educating girls pliancy and docility are among the
first points to aim at.
The old stereotyped complaint that women are
'fond of their own way,' we all have heard, and all
women, at least, have laughed at. And yet it deserves
serious attention, as a curious indication not only of the
* 'Il n'y a qu'une volonté au monde qui puisse toujours être maitresse
de l'enfant comme de l'homme, c'est la sienne; il s'agit donc de ne pas
soumettre sa volonté, mais de lui en donner une.'-Lettres de Famille
sur l'Education. Par Mde. Guizot. Vol. i. p. 56.
FEEBLENESS OF CHARACTER.
295
perverted views that result from the possession of irre-
sponsible power, but of the influence of that perversion
upon those who suffer under it. It is analogous to
the denunciations of popular rebellion in former times,
when a feeble attempt was made now and then by the
subject classes to resist a wrong or claim a right.
When we examine the real meaning of the expression,
it amounts to this: that the human creature has a pre-
ference for indulging its own tastes, wishes, or inclina-
tions, rather than for seeing them set aside by others;
a proposition whose general truth few, probably, will be
inclined to dispute, who know what is meant by having
a taste or an inclination. The variety of the instances
in which that universal aim is attained by the more de-
pendent half of the human race has, no doubt, attracted
attention to the successful; but to those who look a
little closer, the really strange point is not the occa-
sional indulgence, but the habitual surrender of will;
the habitual sacrifice of self, with all its independent
impulses, wishes, and convictions, not merely at the call
of affection,-which makes even sacrifice a joy,-but to
a vague notion compounded of duty and necessity.
I shall not, I believe, be suspected by any candid
reader of seeking to alter the natural and inevitable
subordination of women. Here, however, I deal, not
with a social, but with an individual question, and I
maintain that women, far from erring by too deter-
mined a will, err sadly from want of firmness and
vigour of character. From that source spring half
their mistakes both in opinion and action, more than
half their follies, as also of their want of influence, and
the slow desponding suffering which is the canker in
the lives of so many. They want determination, they
want energy and clearness to enable them to see a
296
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
course and pursue it. And those for whose pleasure or
benefit their nature has been thus mutilated have not
failed to revile them for the faults which are the natural
result. The satirists and moralists and all their feeble
imitators in society, who rail at female love of power,
scoff equally at the featureless character of women in
general. Their judgments concern us here, only so far
as they approve themselves to our own consciences.
When men complain of love of power in women, it is
the cry of an interested witness; but when they ridicule
our weakness, our incapacity or helplessness-whatever
individual injustice there may be in the accusation—we
are forced with deep mortification to confess that in
educating girls to submission we have too often edu-
cated them to nullity. In considering certain positions.
and relations in which woman is necessarily subject,
we have too much forgotten the spiritual freedom and
dignity of the moral being responsible to God and not
to man for the use and exercise of the powers with
which He has gifted her.
With regard to education, a system of complete
subjection may be necessary and also quite harmless
in schools, while most pernicious at home, for the
authority is altogether different in character. Positive
and distinct rules are laid down for the government of
a school, and punishments incurred if they are dis-
obeyed; but the child is free to disobey and incur the
penalty. The authority enforces that and no more; it
makes no claim to a willing obedience; it does not
meddle with thoughts or feelings, the moral nature is
under no subjection. It is in short a conventional
system for a given time and purpose, and not a scheme
of life; character developes freely under the empire of
such a law; its great defect is that it has little or no
HOME AND SCHOOL AUTHORITY.
297
moral influence. In a school the master teaches and
commands, but it is the public opinion of the young
community which sways feeling and principle.
It is, and ought to be far different at home. Parental
rule is not the sway of a temporarily constituted autho-
rity, submitted to for certain purposes and under certain
conditions; it claims the heart and will no less than the
outward action; disobedience is a violence done to the
child's conscience, from which he cannot recover as from
the effects of breaking through school discipline, and
which could not be frequently repeated without real
injury to the moral nature. If, therefore, this autho-
rity, thus deep and far-reaching in itself, be also ex-
tended over a long period of life, the young mind
will almost certainly suffer both morally and intel-
lectually.
Generally speaking, with daughters that period is
not allowed to have any natural limit. They are rarely
supposed to have attained the age when they may deter-
mine their own course within even the narrow limits
which their natural condition allows. An extra demand
for frivolous amusement, especially if it holds out any
prospect of worldly advantage, is kindly met; a strong
theological bent is generally excused; but gay or
gloomy, wise or foolish, it is all a question of indulgence,
not the simple exercise of rational freedom. And from
these nursery trammels, one step places a girl amid the
cares and responsibilities of marriage; never having
ruled her own life for a day, she undertakes duties in-
volving the happiness of one she loves and the comfort
of many
!
It is not, however, with regard to independence of
action only, or to mental activity, that a free spirit of
self-regulation is needed; it is the life of our moral
298
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
{
nature.* The feeble and dependent follow mere routine
in their religion, in their benevolence, in their daily
duties, no less than in their pursuits and occupations.
In educating girls, the necessity of freeing them from
this dominion of mere habit is increased by the very
circumstances of their outward lot which tend so
strongly to rivet it; since the more humble and
dependent the position, the more need is there, in
order that the dignity of the human being be not
utterly abandoned, that the inner life should be free,
exalted, and vigorous.
It is often said that strength of character renders
women less gentle, but those who make this assertion
should at least take the trouble to prove some connec-
tion between feebleness and gentleness. Undoubtedly
they may often co-exist, since there is nothing in feeble-
ness which necessarily fosters any ungentle qualities ;
but at the same time we must remember that the
obstinacy of the fool, the vacillation of the weak and
timid, the peevishness of those who have not resolution
enough either to do or to forbear, are quite as likely to
produce want of gentleness as the more decided forms
of pride or self-confidence. On the whole, I am inclined
to think that in women-as it certainly is in men
the truest gentleness and tenderness are combined with
the greatest force of character. The most helpless are,
undoubtedly, the most querulous and exacting in their
demands upon others; while the innate strength of
self-reliance favours equability of temper, and leaves
* A character,' says Novalis, is a completely fashioned will,'-quoted
by J. S. Mill. Logic, vol. ii. p. 417, fourth edition. Habits, routine, sub-
jection to others, are not character; the latter is the outer manifestation
of strong motives and principles of thought and action.
WHEN TO RELAX AUTHORITY.
299
the mind free to give attention and sympathy to the
wants and difficulties of others. Where this is not so,
it arises from other moral defects which have nothing
to do with vigour or decision. Pride may ape strength
for a time and obstinacy may hope to be called resolu-
tion, but in speaking of education we do not suppose it
possible that such disguises can pass undetected. It is
true also that really fine-spirited, earnest natures may
be more chafed than others at the unnecessary bondage
they may be made to feel. But this is the fault of the
system, not of the individual; it is the struggle of the
full-grown creature trammelled by the leading-strings
of the infant.
No doubt one of the great difficulties of education is
to know when to relax authority; when to sink the
absolute ruler in the guide, and the guide in the coun-
sellor and friend; when our opinions and views are to
cease to be laws, and the young are to be simply assisted
in forming views and opinions for themselves. The
difficulty is however much lessened whenever parents
are willing to consider this change, not as a consequence
of the rebellious spirit of youth, but as the real object
for which the previous obedience has been exacted.
Parents who submit from a sense of necessity to
relaxing authority feel every step as an encroachment,
but when they have themselves prepared the way for
those steps, reverence and respect will only grow with
the decline of absolute rule. Children should be made
to feel from the earliest time that their parents do not
exert authority from love of power; that they do not
demand obedience because they are in a position to
enforce it, but because they are wiser, abler, because
they know and follow the duty God has laid upon
them of nurturing the good and correcting the evil in
300
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the weak, ignorant creatures committed to their care.
But it is no part of their duty to form mere subjects
to their own will; the discipline of early years is im-
posed only that later years may prove fitness for self-
government. This is the real aim of education, and so
considered, emancipation from authority is no rebellion,
no sad loosening of ties that should have been respected,
but the fulfilment of the parents' own purpose.
If
Bishop Butler's theory of habit* were more studied by
those who have the charge of education, there would
be less faith in the power of outward subjection, and
more consistent effort to make the habits we wish to
form emanate from the will and conviction of the young
themselves.
The absolute impossibility of keeping young men
under constant restraint makes parents early relax
authority over sons, while they maintain it over
daughters, although superior perhaps in age, character,
and ability. But sons know that it is a yielding to
necessity, and hence the feeling that they have eman-
cipated themselves, and a sense of triumph in having
in some measure conquered their freedom; instead of
the wholesome conviction that they are free and trusted
just when and how the whole scheme of their educa-
tion had contemplated their being so. Perhaps fathers
would never have sunk into governors under a different
system! The power of the purse is the last resort of
effete authority, and the whole moral and intellectual
influence of the highest position one human being can
occupy towards another, is degraded into the material
yoke of the one possessing and the other needing money!
Daughters who have no way, except marriage, of ren-
* Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed. Part i. chap. 5.
APPEALING TO HIGH FEELING.
301
dering themselves independent with regard to income,
naturally it is said remain under subjection.
But setting aside those who make difficulties by
their own undue love of power, I admit, as I said above,
that this is one of the delicate points of youthful train-
ing. Perhaps one of the best means of preparing the
way from the obedience of the child to the willing
docility of youth, is to associate the young girl in some
measure in our labour by explaining to her gradually
the principles on which her education has been con-
ducted, letting her see the aim and intent of the studies
and of the rules she has perhaps never considered.
except as daily necessities; pointing out how they are
all parts of one system, embracing the whole of that
portion of her life for which her parents are respon-
sible, and tending to fit her for taking that respon-
sibility in her own hands, and fulfilling wider and more
arduous duties than have yet fallen to her lot. Let
her be frankly told that without her co-operation it is
felt that no effort can be successful; while her wish
and power to co-operate in working steadily towards a
determined purpose, is the surest sign that she has
passed the bounds of childhood, and is beginning to act
and understand like a reasonable being, accountable to
God for the use of its faculties.
The quickness with which the young respond to a
high tone of feeling will, I believe, in far the greater
number of cases, give great force to such words from
the parent, if their mild wisdom be acted upon with
entire consistency and frankness. The young mind
will expand to this large view opened to it for the first
time. A new sense of dignity will spring up as it con-
templates those school-room tasks as its own individual
share of that great labour of self-improvement and dis-
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
cipline enjoined on all alike. And with this sense of
its own dignity, there will spring up also in every gene-
rous mind a new feeling of respect and affection for
the parent, whose far-reaching wisdom and watchful
care it reflects upon for the first time in their true
aspect. It will feel that there is something in these so
far beyond its own feeble powers, that spontaneous
reverence will place the mother higher than ever, at
the very moment when she is relaxing authority, and
treating her child as a companion and an equal.
From the time the young girl is thus associated in
the labour of those who direct her education, every
occasion should be taken to accustom her to the exer-
cise of her own discretion. If a new study is to be
commenced, she should be consulted about it; if a
change of hours is required, let her propose her own
scheme and talk it over with you. Let her have the
command of her own time as far as may be compatible
with regular teaching, so that she may study under a
This is
sense of responsibility, not under surveillance.
doubly valuable, since the object of first importance
with girls is to give them the desire to work and the
habit of doing so without any external obligation or
stimulus. When opposition to some expressed wish is
inevitable, let the reasons and principle of the oppo-
sition be made so clear that she will acknowledge the
consistency, and be convinced that there is no love of
authority, even when she cannot fully see the wisdom
of the measure. In her amusements, in her mode of
spending her own money, in her desire to serve others,
let there be no sort of interference except when neces-
sary to prevent real mischief. I do not give this name
to mere mistakes, though productive of annoyance or
temporary suffering. These are the price paid for
EXCEPTIONAL CASES.
303
experience, and which, within certain limits, it is better
that we should all pay, because we all prefer incurring
the cost to taking the wisdom of others upon trust.
The greater the freedom and the more gentle the treat-
ment after blunders of this kind have been made, the
more secure will be the future confidence in the parent's
advice.
Such, I believe, should be the course gradually
adopted at the period we have been considering. Ex-
ceptional cases require of course exceptional treatment.
There may
be difficult circumstances and difficult
tempers, violent or sluggish natures, which would make
such a course inexpedient, and render the exertion of
mere authority still necessary at the age of fourteen or
fifteen. But this ought not to be; and the mother, if
compelled to that exertion, should let her child see how
completely she feels it to be a wrong and a disappoint-
ment of all her expectations. The sorrow should be
as frankly expressed as the firmness of purpose. Every
sign of a better tone of mind should then be watched
and earnestly welcomed, while at the same time the
child suffers the natural consequence of her own folly
in the partial withdrawal of the confidence she has
proved herself unworthy of. She must be made to feel
that the respect of her superiors for her depends on her
own self-respect, of which she is evidently careless,
when she can bear to sink back from a reasonable
creature to a child. Many a backsliding, many a dis-
couraging symptom of weakness must be expected in
all but rare cases; but the mother should labour to
prevent discouragement taking hold of the young mind.
Her own indulgence and hopeful tone should be in
proportion to the signs of mortification at failure shown.
by the young girl herself, since there is always hope of
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
good where there is sincere suffering caused by the
sense of wrong-doing. If the mind be dead to the
shame of frequent failure, either through natural insen-
sibility or frivolity, or any other quality indicative of a
shallow nature, then the more stringent treatment must
be resorted to.
Some minds, it may be feared, are really incapable
of self-guidance. A certain grade of mental infirmity
may, as we have before remarked, show itself under
this aspect no less than under that of direct intellectual
deficiency. When such is the case, where the mother's
earnest efforts fail to make her child fit to shape her
own course under the guidance of conscience, the next
resource is to form such habits as will become a routine
for the feeble mind to follow, and mark a humble but-
under ordinary circumstances a tolerably safe track
through the labyrinth, where she could not be trusted
to thread her own way. Habits of constant occupation,
of punctual regularity, of attention to the wishes and
pursuits of others, and of respect for superior character
and intellect, will in a great measure serve as guides,
even when the mind is incapable of appreciating their
value; and so long as no outward disturbance breaks
through the routine, it will preserve its influence.
happens also occasionally that character, like the in-
tellect, develops so tardily, that where at fifteen we had
been utterly discouraged by apparently hopeless inert-
ness or waywardness, we may some years later find new
power unfolded. A new phase of character will appear,
and then the routine of habits which have been, as we
may say, the cradle in which the feeble moral nature
has been nursed and strengthened, will decide the form
of the first efforts the enfranchised mind will make to-
wards its own improvement.
It
SACREDNESS OF RESOLUTIONS.
305
Under happier circumstances, when forming in the
young the capacity for self-guidance, there is one point
of extreme importance to be especially dwelt upon.
This is steadfastness in adhering to resolutions; a sense
of duty attaching to that which has once been earnestly
purposed. From the moment a young person is trusted
with the disposal of time, and with some degree of free-
dom of action, this view of the sacredness of resolu-
tions should be carefully enforced, and we must be sure
that the nature of the evil resulting from trifling with
them is thoroughly understood. It is not rare to see
much confusion on this point, even among persons of
thoroughly upright mind. They measure the wrong
by the importance of the resolution that has been vio-
lated, whereas the violation of conscience involved in
the failure is its true and only measure.
As a ques-
tion of expediency, or even of duty to others, breaking
one resolution may be a far less blameable act than
breaking another; but to the individual, as a question of
duty to himself, the evil result is the same.
In order to make a young person understand this
point, several other subjects must first be made clear,
such as the nature and power of habit; the importance
of daily trifling actions towards forming habits; the
necessity of ordering life upon a system, of having a
distinct aim in view, to attain which certain habits of
mind and action are seen to be requisite. Lastly, it
must be shown how, in judging of pursuits, actions, or
habits of any description, they must be approved or
condemned principally according as they tend to for-
ward or to thwart that ruling purpose, with a view to
which, one general plan of life is laid out; since that
plan being decided upon under a sense of duty, it is
X
306
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
placed thereby under the guardianship of conscience.
The young must be made to see that failure in one
of these points almost necessarily involves failure in
all. He, for instance, who does not consider the
force of habit, allows each day's carelessness about little
things to rivet its powerful chain upon his mind. One
who has thus unconsciously become the slave of habits,
his own predetermination had no part in forming, can
evidently not act upon system. He who does not act
upon system, who has no settled method in his life, has
no standard of self-regulation beyond those obvious
points which involve questions of duty to others; too
often will he fail even in these, from the very wayward-
ness of mood unused to steady control; and as he has
no distinct aim in view, resolutions will be made and
broken, pursuits taken up and abandoned, time em-
ployed or wasted, according to the impulse of the mo-
ment, without a thought of evil resulting in any more
formidable shape than want of success in the matters in
hand. Errors of this nature intimately connected to-
gether, and leading to general instability of character,
may be joined to such natural goodness and elevation
of feeling, that the action which flows from impulse
shall have all the appearance of virtue, but can never
deserve its praise nor inspire the confidence which
steadfastness of mind and systematic obedience to prin
ciple command from all who are capable of judging
human conduct.
The extreme importance to women of methodical
self-regulation, and habitual value for time, is most
apparent, not only from the consideration of those
temptations to idleness and frivolity which are inci-
dental to their position, but also from the nature of
METHOD IN DAILY LIFE.
307
some of their serious duties.* All the small detail of
life which falls most legitimately to woman's share,
comes in a great measure in so irregular a form, that
rigid exactness of occupation would be generally im-
possible. A child who wants care cannot be made to
wait till a leisure moment. A tradesman, on the answer
to whose business the comfort of the household may
depend, cannot be sent away to return at a more con-
venient time. The poor person who comes for advice
or help in some emergency, cannot be denied. The
sick person whose very fancies are a law, cannot be
made to submit to the punctual habits so valuable for
our own occupations. The old, the sad, the weary,
who look to us for comfort or help, or the gladdening
of a cheerful hour, must not find their claims set aside
for the sake of the systematic regularity so important
to ourselves. Such is the state of things to which
women must learn to adapt themselves; and one of the
advantages of home over school education for girls is,
that they gradually learn that art under their mother's
eye. They do not come from the complete regularity
of school hours and arrangements to feel themselves at
the same moment free, and yet exposed to the host of
small claims which bewilder them, and help to put to
flight all notion of regular study or pursuit. At home
the freedom has been long prepared, and the habit of
occupation rooted in the midst of home interests and
engagements.
As a girl becomes old enough to understand these
matters, and to feel the danger of letting the daily
*See chapter on 'Method,' in Thoughts on Self-Culture, where the
views brought forward in the following pages are more fully dwelt
upon.
X 2
30S
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
occurrences of life take the sway of our lives out of our
own hands, she can be shown in the first place how far
mere regularity and punctuality can assist us in con-
trolling the manner in which these various claims press
upon us; how far order and steady adherence to rules.
can reduce daily interruptions, by enforcing method
wherever we have the power of control, and allowing no
break in that order except in cases of sudden emergency,
or from the claims of the old and the sick. Secondly, this
yet more important lesson must be made clear to the
young girl from the moment she begins to act for her-
self—namely, that there must be a system in her life far
above all these petty hindrances, embracing all occupa-
tions which belong to her social position, whatever their
form and whatever the disadvantages attached to them,
but making them find their place as parts of a whole:
she must feel that women who have no career of worldly
activity to force methodical exertion, can never afford to
lose sight of those great aims which bind our earthly
course with our hopes of eternity through one wide
system of usefulness and self-improvement: a sense of
responsibility for all our means and faculties governing
the mind throughout.
The influence of this high feeling upon the ordinary
detail of life is to introduce a different kind of method
from that which depends on regularity and punctuality
alone. Supposing, for example, that certain fixed hours
for our own pursuits cannot be secured free from inter-
ruption, yet we can generally make sure of doing a
given amount of work in the course of the day. We
can acquire the habit of turning attention quickly and
readily from one subject to another, so that on returning
to our own occupation we may suffer as little as possible
from the ill effects of interruption. When time for
any
METHOD IN DAILY LIFE.
t
309
regular pursuit is cut down to very scanty limits, we
can be careful to preserve the habit and the love of
steady mental occupation by doing a little daily, keeping
up the thread in expectation of better times. The
break will thus be an interruption only, allowed on the
plea of superior claims or duty; but while it alters our
daily routine, it changes nothing in our settled views of
the way our life should be spent and the objects it
should aim at.
It is difficult to make any person who is not strongly
impressed with the value of method see the importance
of the distinction here insisted upon, between a daily
life which, though subject to constant interruption, never
loses sight of systematic occupation for a given purpose,
and the same life subject only to the same trials, but
given up without struggle to the shifting rule of cir-
cumstance. In the former, although every semblance
of regularity be forcibly broken through perhaps for
weeks together, the higher system still overrules the
whole, and the moment the cause of disturbance ceases,
the accustomed order is spontaneously resumed; pro-
gress in a given pursuit has been retarded, but the
mind has preserved its equability; nothing has been
unsettled in the inner life. On the other hand, with
persons who have no definite purpose beyond the day's
business, even when no unusual interruptions occur,
time is frittered away,-occupations daily contemplated
and perhaps even begun, can find no place,-purposes
formed in the morning are neglected ere half the day's
flutter of small cares is over; till on looking back over
weeks or perhaps months, nothing has been accom-
plished, though all the while a sense of ceaseless
pressure and hurry wearies the nerves and affects the
spirits. Nor is the difference one that affects active
t
310
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
life or mental occupation only, it tells upon the moral
tone of character. In the one case we feel that through
whatever eddying currents, under whatever uncertain
skies we steer our course, we still hold the helm in our
own hands; we are still, in the highest sense, as far as
mortal lips can venture on the assertion, the pilots of
our own destiny. But in the other case we have
yielded the rudder to the fickle waves, and we are
borne along day by day as wind and current list.
difference of moral vigour and dignity resulting from
these two courses requires no comment.
The
Many occasions will present themselves of practically
enforcing these views during the period of education.
Interruptions will occur to break in even upon school-
room life, secluded as yet from ordinary social claims;
and it is well to lead the young girl to see her own
way through difficulties of this nature, to consider for
herself what can best be done, what is the relative
importance of the different things she is usually en-
gaged with, and what therefore can be omitted from
her usual studies or occupations with least injury to
the real method of life that includes all duties alike.
I would not have occasions of this kind either made or
avoided; they occur in every family; and with her
mother's example and a firm hold of the principle by
which she must be guided, there will be little fear of
her going wrong. Illness affords precious opportunities
of moral instruction. The sick room falls within
woman's natural province, and she must be taught
her duty there. The young creature's offer of help in
hours of anxiety or sorrow, or when prompted by
benevolent feeling only, should if possible never be
refused; by accepting it we allow her to cultivate the
best sympathies of her nature. Only we must take
ECONOMY.
311
care that the impulse to seek the new employment is
not mixed up with love of change or wish to get rid of
lessons, and that it is not carelessly or capriciously dis-
charged as the first impulse dies away. She must feel
that it is in the sick room that we expect to see the
practical fruits of some of the severest studies she has
been engaged in. Observation, judgment, correct in-
ference, accuracy, and method, which are cultivated
by means of study forcing the mind to reflection, must
here come into action with moral qualities of a high
order, with self-control both as regards temper and the
exhibition of feeling which incapacitates the nurse for
her duty, with patience, unselfishness in disregarding
inconvenience or fatigue, and unvarying gentleness and
cheerfulness in bearing with the often querulous humour
of the patient; while combined with these must be the
sense of responsibility in having undertaken a serious
duty, and won a mark of confidence which any fickle-
ness or neglect would make her forfeit. Attendance
in a sick room so considered, is an interruption to
regular habits and studies, but it is truly no violation
of the method of education.
Economy is another point of very serious moment.
which must come under the control of method. It is
a difficult art, and apprenticeship to it should begin
early. I think it advisable to give children money as
soon as they are able to keep a correct account of what
they spend. The next point is to make them under-
stand the first principles of rational expenditure, that
is, the difference between the useful and the fanciful,
between the more or less useful or important, between
a want and a whim; and also to make them feel the
duty and inspire the wish to serve others, which intro-
duces another motive for prudence and self-control in
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
the gratification of our own wants. At fifteen, a girl
ought to be fit to be trusted with an allowance for her
dress, which besides enforcing the above lessons has the
further advantage of making her more careful about
her wardrobe, and more willing to take some trouble
to keep it in order. And care and thrifty management
are considerable elements in those branches of economy
which commonly fall to a woman's superintendence.
There may be no want of good feeling in the careless-
ness about these things shewn by a girl who has every-
thing provided for her; but she does not learn the prac-
tical consequences of carelessness as when she is obliged
to sacrifice the money she had destined for some plea-
surable purchase, because the gloves or stockings that
might by careful mending have been made to last,
must owing to neglect be replaced altogether.
Another valuable lesson which a girl can hardly
learn till she has money of her own, is how quickly it
melts away with sixpenny purchases. So much of the
expenditure for women's dress is in trifling and indivi-
dually cheap things, that no one believes at first that
'only this' and 'only that' can swell into a large
bill. There should be in all ordinary cases no sort of
interference with the purchases. If she chooses ill to-
day, she will be all the more likely to choose better
next month for having bought her own experience.
Two rules only should be invariable: perfect neatness
in the dress, and no bills. I mean of course by the
latter no long-standing bills, for it often happens,
especially when living in the country, that an account
must be kept open with one or more shops; but if
these be called for at stated times, and if the allowance
be paid towards the same period, we ensure regularity
in the payment and likewise the immediate penalty for
RULE OF EXPENDITURE.
313
extravagance, when the quarter's allowance, which pro-
bably had been reckoned upon for many purposes, is
found to melt away in paying for what had seemed
such trifling expenses when incurred. It must be ex-
pected that the young beginner will get more than
once into troubles of this kind, but how slight are they
compared with what parents recklessly expose their
daughters to, when they have been left till the period of
their marriage without the control of any expenditure,
and suddenly have a large and complicated one thrown
upon their hands. If poor, their ignorance may pro-
duce serious discomfort and embarrassment; if rich, it
will be a source of folly as regards themselves, and of
corruption as regards servants and dependents. In
both cases it will be a source of annoyance to their
husbands, and too often the cause of the first irritable
tones and slighting words which mar the loving peace
of their new home..
The mother will, I believe, do well to give no assis-
tance in the small troubles a girl's thoughtlessness or
extravagance have involved her in. If a sister or old
friend who happens to know her difficulty should wish
to save her from the consequences of her mistakes,
there is not the same objection, for she never can
depend on aid of this kind. But payment of a debt
by her mother, or assistance to relieve her from the
natural penalty of extravagance, might create an ex-
pectation of being so helped again. Whatever the
amount of the allowance, there is one rule for every for-
tune; namely, that our means and not our fancies or
even our reasonable wants must be the measure of our
expenditure. We cannot too soon with young people
check any temptation to adopt that disastrous plea of
extravagant people, I must have, or do so-and-so, for
314
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
everybody does so.' We must be honest,—that is the
one great necessity which is forgotten by every in-
fringement, great or small, of the rule of living within
our means.
The question of amusements enters as a very large
element into the consideration of the general method
of our lives, for nothing needs more to be kept sub-
servient to our serious purposes. It is rather a difficult
question in education when the easy pleasures of child-
hood are given up. Living in the country presents
most advantages in this respect; gardening, pet animals,
riding, skating, long walks to spend the bright summer
day in woods rich with wild-flowers or beside the
brawling stream, where bird and tiny insect can be
watched enjoying the sunny hours; or again, pic-nics, or
family gatherings at Christmas, all afford pleasures as
simple as they are delightful to the young elastic spirits
untainted by the world's excitements or its vanities.
If living in town, we are driven to resort habitually to
forms of amusement which are less naturally attractive
to the young, and have not the same recommendation
of being equally conducive to health as to enjoyment.
Still there are many resources without resorting to
amusements which tend to feed vanity and love of
dress. There are curious and interesting exhibitions,
museums, and collections of every kind illustrative of
different branches of study, easy access to books,
pleasant society, and every opportunity for cultivating
and refining the love of art which sheds so much enjoy-
ment over life. Nor do many people live the whole
year round in London, and the pleasure of summer
excursions to town-bred children is truly exquisite. It
is not easy to surpass the joy of holidays spent by the
sea-side, or among the distant hills, where the beauty
AMUSEMENTS.
315
of scenery will awaken the young heart to a new source
of emotion and delight, a source whence will flow
soothing for many an hour of depression, forgetfulness
of many a weary thought or care, so long as eye or
limb retain their power.
No taste, however, is comparable as a lasting fund
of enjoyment to a love of reading, which, if fostered by
education into real love of knowledge, becomes a
source not of pleasure alone, but of happiness. Unfor-
tunately, common systems do little to inspire that love.
The teaching is dry and formal, there is little time left
for any reading of the pupil's own choice, and the
choice itself is too restricted, the books generally of too
trivial a character to excite the imagination, or to rouse
a strong feeling of interest or pleasure. It is, perhaps, |
in general, over-care that so limits the range of reading ;
and on this subject it appears to me that many mis-
takes are made both with regard to objectionable matter
and also to what is supposed to be above the young
reader's comprehension. I believe it is safer to form
the taste and love for reading, and then leave the mind
to itself; let it learn to cherish the pleasure of freely
seeking it and enjoying it in the form it has chosen.
The mind is less cramped, less biassed by false notions;
it gets more exercised by reading works meant for the
public at large, than from being confined to books
written expressly for the young. In such books every-
thing is too apt to be toned down to their supposed
powers of comprehension;-truths are timidly stated,
opinions are modified, society is shown under one aspect
only, and therefore falsely shown, and great principles
are dwindled down to small conventional moralities.
Far from such reading being a benefit, it is enfeebling
to heart and intellect. Many things in larger works
316
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
may be beyond their comprehension; no matter; if
our pupils have learnt the art of reading, such things
will not be passed over,-necessary explanations will be
sought in conversation or from other books.
In actual teaching we cannot be too careful to make
every subject perfectly clear to the understanding; but
when reading for pleasure, it is more healthy for the
young mind to be brought frequently to behold the great
ocean of knowledge that it can scarcely yet approach,
still less explore; to let imagination revel in that poetical
dimness of the unknown infinite, than to have every-
thing set forth with a definiteness that belongs to the
narrow scope of the work alone. Great things to be
done and learnt and hoped for, appeal like generous
sentiments to the heart of the young; and it is better
for them to see in books the wide world of human
action, endeavour, and suffering, than always to have
some small section of it cut out and coloured for their
own particular use. I would say, therefore, that sup-
posing all really pernicious works to be put out of the
way, or simply prohibited, it is best to let girls have in
their leisure hours the free range of their parents'
library. A governess will, of course, know what her
pupils are reading, because their choice is an important
indication of character; but let her interfere no further
than to talk the books over with them, thus drawing
out opinions and modifying impressions, and leading
them to see for themselves when their choice has
been a bad one.
The dread of letting a girl meet with coarseness of
expression or improper narrative is doubtless one chief
reason for this great strictness with regard to books;
but even this appears to me to be a somewhat exagge-
rated fear. In the first place, many a passage that
DANGER OF COARSENESS.
317
would offend an older person passes unheeded by a
young girl. How common is it at a much later period
of life for a woman to read books without even sus-
pecting the impropriety which she afterwards finds is
imputed to them by men? Knowledge of life, with its
polluting experience, gives the clue to the slimy laby-
rinth of coarse writing, while in some sense to the
pure all things are pure.' I shall hardly be supposed
to advocate this style of reading, but I am certain that
offensive passages here and there in otherwise desirable
works are not likely to be mischievous. The sort of
(
mystery about them that is often made is, I believe,
far more objectionable. If certain books are prohibited,
—perhaps justly,—or the young reader inconveniently
asks for an explanation of expressions she has met with,
the tone adopted often conveys the idea of an undue
degree of importance attached to the subject, which in
some minds may rouse curiosity; while a simple and
frank answer might have prevented any willing recur-
rence to the subject. Explanations cannot, of course,
always be given, but it is easy to answer in a manner
that satisfies the questioner and does not violate truth;
as, for instance, to say in a simple tone and manner,
that such or such expressions are coarse words, now
utterly banished from decent society and from good
writing, used in less refined periods, or as describing
a ruder state of society, or alluding to vices which,
fortunately, women in the educated classes do not come
in contact with, &c. Answers of this kind leave the
mind untainted by any needless acquaintance with im-
purity, and in the very great majority of girls educated
with refined and delicate habits, will create a disagree-
able association with the subject which will prevent any
recurrence to it.
{
318
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
The extreme ignorance of early girlhood is a reason
for encouraging the first reading of some of our great
poets at that age. I would ask the objectors, at any
rate, why reading these in private is more objectionable.
than listening in public to certain chapters of the Old
and even the New Testament, which are read without
scruple in our churches? Do they expect when they put
the Bible into a girl's hands that those are the portions
to which she will revert, and on which she will love to
dwell? Neither are the passages of Spenser or Shak-
speare, to which we return again and again as to dear
familiar friends, those which contain aught that can
offend against the most refined modesty.
The same objections would stand, and are often
allowed to stand, against reading almost any authors of
antiquity; and yet how lifeless must be our notions of
those ancient times that have so influenced the course
of modern life and thought, if we remain altogether
ignorant of their literature ! All too poor and faded is
the view when we are unable to become acquainted with
it in the original languages; but even in transla-
tions we get what no modern historian can give us,—
namely, the mode of thought, the habitual impressions,
the received views of what was familiar to them and is
so strange and foreign to us. We read a mere modern
narrative of ancient events by the light of our own asso-
ciations; but when we open an ancient author, we come
into a different world of ideas,—into that inner world
which was in harmony with the outer events we are
reading of. In philosophical and comprehensive views,
we, doubtless, gain more from those whom time and
generations of research, and means of comparison, have
placed on the 'vantage ground' for taking a wide
survey of human affairs; but what modern writer can
.
FALSE REFINEMENT.
319
excite the feelings with which we read Herodotus or
Thucydides or Plutarch, Livy or Tacitus, or those
familiar letters of Cicero, which open home and public
life to us at once? Even reading translations of the
Greek tragedians, poor as they are, lets us more into
the world of Greek thought than the most elaborate of
modern dissertations. Yet all this must be cut off if
that extreme strictness is to be adhered to.
The real poison to be guarded against is that in-
stilled by licentious sentiment; and on this ground
many modern writers in which few, if any, objection-
able words could be found, are pernicious in the highest
degree. The evil here comes in disguise; it is addressed
not to a knowledge of degrading facts, but to feelings
and emotions which cannot be too carefully guarded
from excitement. Writings of this kind do not fall
into the hands of the very young, although they would
do less harm then than later. The wide circulation of
French novels cannot but lower one's estimate of modern
refinement, which shrinks with such extreme squeamish-
ness from words that express in a coarse and obsolete
form what is certainly not less revolting for being dressed
up with all the graces of style, and the veil of high-
flown sentiment.
Do what we will, some knowledge of vice and cor-
ruption will be forced upon all, and often almost before
childhood is passed; and it appears to me unimportant
whether the words are also known, by which writers in
a coarse state of society openly designated what modern
books or gossip more covertly imply. No one will
deny that it is an advantage when such expressions are
banished from literature and society; for although re-
finement of language is no certain indication of refine-
ment of mind, any more than polished manners are a
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
test of real kindliness of feeling; yet the tone of public
opinion which exacts the observance of these forms, is
one which tends to exalt the estimate of the qualities
they simulate. In a state of society, therefore, where
the outward indications of coarse and licentious thought
and tone of manners are held up as degrading to the
reputation of persons in a certain rank of life, the effect
must be to heighten contempt for the vices thus com-
pelled to hide themselves, and to establish in a large
and increasing number of minds a healthy association.
on these important subjects. These are reasons for
valuing even a fastidious refinement of language, which
can easily be made intelligible to the young girl, while
we refuse to exclude her from a wide circle of literature,
embracing some of the noblest works of human genius,
on the petty plea of not letting her read expressions
she will become acquainted with in church if nowhere
else.
The moral lesson to be taught to the young girl is,
that she should value among the highest privileges that
exemption from coarse experience and degrading tempta-
tion which is ensured to her by her position in society,
and which also allows her to remain ignorant of the foul
impurities which taint the moral atmosphere of thou-
sands among her fellow-creatures, even of her own sex
and tender years. Some of the moral harshness of pure
and warm-hearted women, springs from the false views
of the world which a timid education has implanted.
Had they been gradually accustomed to know what are
the temptations and the weakness of our poor human
nature, they would have valued the privileges of their
own lot in a humbler spirit, and have looked with truer
and gentler feeling on the erring and the fallen.
To return from this somewhat lengthy digression on
DANGER OF EXCITEMENT.
321
books, to the immediate subject of amusements, we may
remark that in general the most desirable forms of
amusement for girls are such as lead to out-of-door
exercise, and such as can be followed at home with the
least expense and the least dependence on others. For
women need some inducement to take as much exercise
as health requires, and everything is precious to them
which can enliven an often monotonous existence with-
out leading them to depend on society which few can
command, or on expenditure which they rarely control.
The love of exciting pleasures is one of the most un-
fortunate turns that can be given to the female mind,
and it appears to be fostered in one of two ways by
most systems of education. Sometimes girls are im-
mured in the frightful dullness of their school-rooms,
ignorant of every social enjoyment till they come out,
as the transition from seclusion to frivolous dissipation
is technically called. And it is little to be wondered
at if they evince a frantic love for everything opposed
to the tedium and restraint they have endured so long.
Sometimes, on the other hand,—and this becomes more
and more the fashion in the present day,-they are
inured so early to exciting pleasures that even they
cease to excite. Balls, parties, theatres, concerts,
exhibitions of all kinds are thrown open to them, till,
when the period arrives for them to go into the world,
all ordinary forms of social pleasure have begun to pall
upon them. Their early vitiated taste finds still less.
relish in quieter amusements, and thus in the very
freshness of their youth they appear listless,—dead to
enjoyment except under the immediate stimulus of
some new excitement. Both these systems conspire
against happiness; but the truth is, that providing for
the happiness of the young is but rarely thought of in
Y
322
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
education. It is a difficult portion of that wide view
of methodizing existence which we have been speaking
of above with regard to other matters. It is easier to
amuse children as occasion offers, or to deny them all
amusement for a time, than to consider the present
with relation to the distant future, and to exercise a
wise forethought in cultivating to the utmost all those
means of real enjoyment which will influence the hap-
piness of years.
I believe that while one class of persons live for
pleasure and another are earnestly bent on duty, few
perhaps sufficiently consider happiness, and therefore
pass it over too lightly in education. Men may perhaps
wring theirs from fate, by the strong arm, and the
stout heart, and the dauntless will; but women must
win theirs by the power of a cheerful, hopeful spirit;
knowing they will have more to bear than to do; they
must have the art of making the means that are thrust
upon them minister to their own purposes. When
moralists overlook this great question, or treat it with
half contempt, they surely forget that happiness is the
object of an imperative craving of our nature. When
the latter is yet in its young, unbroken strength, it
not only seeks for happiness as for any of the indis-
pensable means of existence, but expects it as its birth-
right. And when the strength has broken down under
the burden of life; when, often deceived, we first refuse
to listen to Hope, and then grieve that the voice of the
charmer haunts our day-dream no more; when we
know how vain it were to expect the twilight to bring
the brightness noontide failed to pour, or
From the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly runnings could not give ;—
even in that season of disenchantment, we would rather
MEANS OF HAPPINESS.
323
believe that it is our own individual fate that has been
hard, and that we have been singled out to be exiled
from our inheritance, than admit the dreary belief that
no inheritance of happiness is destined for man. And
we only give it up on earth to cling more earnestly to
the hopes of heaven.
If such be the feeling that nature prompts, how can
we venture to overlook it in education which pretends
to be the preparation for life? How can we venture
to reason it down in the name of theology or philosophy,
or any
other system that sets up man's standard against
the voice speaking in his own heart? Many things
make happiness unavoidably difficult of attainment.
God gave the craving for it, but He did not so frame.
this world as to ensure the gratification of that craving.
This is one part only of a dark and inscrutable mystery
that points eternally to another life for its solution;
but it does not alter our duty of caring for the happi-
ness of others, any more than it can alter our own
deep thirst for it. That duty is paramount towards
the young who are in our power, and who may be
guided on the right path to find and to bestow this
inestimable boon, or, at least, to feel that they have
not wantonly cast it away. For scanty as the measure
is that the majority of men can attain, who has not
felt with sadness how much that reckless waste has
lessened it? not the waste merely caused by vice or
direct evil, but by ignorance or heedlessness of good,-
by not knowing how to make the most of what is in
our power, and not respecting that which is or might
be a means of happiness to others.
Education can do much towards remedying these
deficiencies. It can cultivate a cheerful spirit, which
shall look out for the means of happiness and cherish
Y 2
324
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
them. It can inspire the feeling that to waste those
means whether for ourselves or others, to spread gloom
when we might have shed light, to rob a heart of one
joy we might have bestowed, is a wrong it may never
be in our power to repair. Education* can mould the
associations of young and pliant minds so that their
notions and desires shall be centred on worthy objects.
It can so frame their views of life that their happiness
shall depend on the health of the spiritual being,-on
what speaks to heart and mind, and not on the supply
of artificial wants or material gratifications; that it
shall be as far as possible dependent on self-exertion,
and consequently be left as little as our earthly con-
dition will allow at the mercy of circumstances.
I have had occasion already to speak of cheerfulness
as one of the most valuable qualities we can cultivate in
the young; and in the same chapter I have spoken also
at some length of the cultivation of that unselfish spirit
of activity which seeks out means of usefulness. Both
these bear strongly upon the present question. The
sense of communion with our fellow-creatures, our
social solidarité,-to borrow a word for which we have
no exact equivalent,—should be strongly impressed on
the young. They must feel that no human being can
venture to believe himself isolated; that consciously or
unconsciously, actively or negatively, we still affect and
influence those around us, as we are influenced and
affected by them. Our own peace, or comfort, or en-
joyment seldom, if ever, come to be considered alone;
those of others are more or less involved in the ques-
tion. We may easily depress or disturb them,—perhaps
we may rarely, if ever, be able to give happiness. This
* See Chap. iii. p. 94.
PLEASURE NOT HAPPINESS.
325
conviction of the too common powerlessness of mortal
hands to bestow that precious gift, though sad, is a
wholesome feeling even for the young, from whom, in
general, we would desire to remove all sadness. Who
would dare to be reckless in disturbing real enjoyment,
in breaking the hush of heartfelt peace, in pouring the
gloom of discontent or caprice over sunny hours, in
severing the happy intercourse of congenial minds, if
they were accustomed to reflect how impossible it is for
them to recall the sunshine, how vain the wish to re-
store the blessings it was so easy, to dispel?
Or if we
dread infusing this taint of sadness into the youthful
heart, let us shew them, how to have the power of giving
happiness is to stand in a position akin to the godlike,
and that all we can conceive of the office of guardian
angels is to avert suffering, and shield the frail growth
of mortal bliss from chill and blight.
It is a trite saying that 'pleasure is not happiness ;'
but until we live as if we believed in the truism, it is
not vain to repeat it. In urging the duty of making
youth happy, I consider that an important part of any
endeavour we can make towards securing that object, is
to enforce the truth of this maxim till the conviction
is deeply rooted. Our affections, our spiritual wants
and aspirations, are the enduring part of our nature,
and to provide for happiness we must provide for that
which is lasting. It is not necessary here to enter into
the comparison between the strength of those wants
and the cravings of physical necessities. The latter are
conditions of existence, not of happiness and we daily
see how habit triumphs over privations which do not
threaten life; and in the midst of what, to the affluent,
seems misery, the human heart seeks and finds happi-
ness when its affections are gratified. But this fact
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
teaches at least an important lesson to those who have
the charge of forming the habits and associations of the
young. They may see there how much it is within
their power to place the view of happiness beyond the
reach of Fortune, and how every endeavour to preserve
to the young their spiritual freedom, unshackled by
the chains of artificial wants, which luxurious habits
alone convert into necessities, increases their chances of
happiness. Every new spiritual aspiration, every want
of the soul craving for knowledge, and truth, and good-
ness, and affection, is an expansion of the nature, a lift-
ing up of its capacities to seize and enjoy new treasures,
and, so far, a direct increase of the means of happiness;
but every new want of the body, every habit by which
luxury first becomes mere comfort, and ends with being
necessary, is a chain tethering us down within a nar-
rower circle of enjoyment, and lessening our capacity
for the happiness we might reach.
It is certainly in the power of education to influence
the tone of mind in these respects. No one, it is true,
will say that luxury is happiness, any more than they
would make the same assertion concerning pleasure;
but if we look at society, we see how fearfully the influ-
ence of both pleasure and luxury tells against real,
elevated views of happiness. When we see money con-
siderations deciding questions in which all that makes
life worth caring for are involved, we may well desire
to educate our children to simpler and truer tastes and
views. When we see the influence of amusements over
persons whose leisure and wealth leave their time at
their own disposal,-when, for instance, we see field
sports, racing, and yachting engrossing the lives of men,
and when women, emulating the frivolity of the other
sex, make a serious business of dress and dissipation,
INFLUENCE OF PARENTS.
327
which have not even the excuse of being favourable to
health, we may well feel that education has neglected
her mission of fitting human beings to seek and enjoy
rational happiness.
6
It is not fair to suppose that girls brought up in
seclusion, with the constant prospect of freedom to
amuse themselves when their education is finished,'
and then suddenly launched into the gay world, will
practise moderation and discern the true from the false
forms of happiness. Their capacity for the latter must
be trained slowly and gradually; it must be the work
of years, steadily but unostentatiously creating a dif-
ferent standard of what the heart can desire, the mind
strive to obtain. It is a work not of teaching, but of
influence. I believe parents often fail to influence their
children because they do not unveil their own minds
with sufficient candour before them. They talk to
them, perhaps, a good deal, on many matters which
they think suited to their capacity; but they do not talk
freely enough before them, so as to let the full influence
of their feelings and knowledge, and of that compound of
both, the whole tone of thought and opinion, tell upon
those young minds, thirsting as they are for impressions.
Where this is done, and when children are accustomed
to express freely their own feelings, and doubts, and
difficulties, there is little need of set discourses by which
the stronger minds are to sway the weaker.
We have now glanced at a variety of subjects, occu-
pations, home and social duties, expenditure, amuse-
ments, views of happiness, which all require to be
brought under the control of a presiding spirit of
method. We have seen that it is at the period when
parents are beginning to relax their authority, that this
systematic regulation of life should be strongly enforced
328
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
as the basis of self-guidance. The method of our lives.
must be complete in all its parts and proportions, as
far as our endeavours can make it so. At no one point
must the rational being be uncertain in his aims, how-
ever he may fall short in his attainment of them. He
may be baffled by the storm, but never can be as the
froth on the waves, or the leaf tossed by the breeze.
When this conviction is deeply rooted in the young
mind, we may trust that we have kindled a spirit which
in some sense will deserve to be called the guardian
angel of existence; for it is not too much to say that
more than half the follies and vices of the upper classes
of society would be starved out of the world, and with
them consequently the suffering they entail, if the value
of time and a sense of accountability for its use were
earnestly felt, and practically influenced conduct.
It is as tending to impress on the young mind a
sense of the responsibilities of life, and of the solemn
duty to each of us of acting resolutely up to the
highest notions of right our reason and conscience
approve, that the ceremony of Confirmation,-or of the
First Communion, in churches that do not adopt Confi-
mation—appears to me to be highly valuable. In adhe-
rence to the rule I have laid down regarding religious
subjects, I shall say nothing of it as a mere ritual obser-
vance or as embodying dogmas, but it has a high moral
meaning apart from those considerations. It is the
solemn close of childhood, with its irresponsible sub-
jection, and the opening of the portals of real life,
with its accountability, its self-guidance, its self-disci-
pline. The young creature on the threshold of active
existence promises before God and man to do hence-
forth for himself what hitherto has been done for him.
Henceforth childish faults and thoughtlessness must be
BAPTISM OF INFANTS.
329
set aside for the earnest purpose of the moral and
rational being who has vowed his existence to the ser-
vice of God, to the cause of truth and virtue, 'in that
state of life in which it has pleased God to call him.'
The baptism of infants, whether or no an institution
of the primitive church, and whatever the different
views held respecting it, is a very touching ceremony.
It is one of those occasions that are but too rare, when
men are made to feel a tie beyond earthly ties, which
links together all who worship the same God, acknow-
ledge the same standard of duty, and live in the same
hope of immortality. Round a cradle as round a grave
we feel this tie pressing on our hearts. This brother-
hood so bound together, opens its arms to receive the
unconscious infant who is destined to share the same
perils, the same toils, the same everlasting hopes. But
if this be a touching ceremony, that of the solemn ad-
mission of the adult into the congregation of Christians
is more touching and impressive still. There they
stand in all the fresh purity and vigour of their youth;
the past all fair to most, or but chequered with quick
forgotten sorrows, the future full of light and promise;
and ere the curtain drops upon that childish past, ere
they spring forward to meet that future to their eyes so
bright, to ours so full of peril, they pause to consecrate
themselves, their bodies and souls, to a holy purpose, by
renewing the vow made for them in their infancy; to
promise to eschew evil and follow good, to seek truth.
and obey it, to study the will of God and make it the
rule of their lives. Such is the purport of the vow,
and such the solemn time for making it; and I believe
that early education cannot be closed in a manner more
likely to impresss its highest lessons firmly upon the
young mind.
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
CHAPTER VII.
STUDIES AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT FROM SIXTEEN
TO EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE.
SECTION 1.-At sixteen, it is not too much to
require six hours a day of real work,-music, which
should now be optional and depending on the pupil's
own taste, being a thing apart. The amount of study,
however, must always be regulated by the state of
health; no other objects can be allowed to overrule
that consideration. I shall presently give the reasons
which make it difficult to draw up a programme of the
day's occupations; but taking a general view, we may
distribute the twelve hours now at our disposal, between
rising at six in the morning and dressing for tea or
dinner at six in the evening, as follows:-Six hours for
study-half an hour each for dressing in the morning,
breakfast, and luncheon, leaving four hours and a half
for exercise and any chosen recreation or pursuit, such
as music or drawing. The shorter the time that girls
can be accustomed to give to their toilet, the better on
every account.
No school allows more than half an
hour, and that appears to me as much as any active
young person can require for bathing and dressing in
the morning. The dawdling that is so common in
these matters is injurious in every respect. It is a
habit of slow movement where quickness is just as
easy and effectual, and it moreover encourages that
INDEPENDENT HABITS.
331
lingering over personal effect which is only too likely
to become a habit at that age. Perfect neatness, clean-
liness, and independence of all assistance, are the points
to be insisted on from childhood. At the age we are
now speaking of some attention to fashion is unavoida-
ble, but must not encroach upon good habits.
With a
little trouble for a day or two, a new or more elaborate
style of coiffure will be executed quickly and without
help, and the additional time required for learning the
art may be gained by leaving the drawing-room half an
hour earlier in the evening, certainly not by dawdling
over the looking-glass in the precious morning hours.
These seem very trifling details to dwell upon; but
when we see the time spent on dressing, three, and not
seldom four times in the day, and the dependence on
servants which diminishes the pleasure and increases
the cost of every absence from home, it is not un-
worthy of a work on education to enter into these
points. The constant habit of waiting on oneself will
often give a positive dislike to receiving help; and we
may venture to hope that a more rational style of dress
will, in time, make women as independent in this respect
as men now are. The fine gentleman was quite as
helpless seventy or eighty years ago, perhaps even later,
as ladies in our day; we may hope that the latter will
in their turn grow ashamed of this prolonged state of
childhood. Attention to dress and expenditure on
dress are both increased by girls having a maid to
attend upon them, and perpetually to remind them of
what in her estimation is naturally the one important
thing in life. This consideration alone seems to me
sufficient to decide the question.
With regard to the distribution of the day, I would
only remark that there should on no account be more
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
than four hours of consecutive study, and this time
never to be given undivided to one subject. The time
for study and for exercise must be regulated according
to circumstances; but it would seem best to give the
morning to the former, so as to reserve the afternoon
free, and thus guard against the possible irregularity
caused by the interruptions of society, which I must
suppose will become more frequent at this age. A
mother will naturally wish to have her daughter with
her in her walks or visits, or to let her enjoy the
society of friends who may be staying in the house; or
she may wish her to ride or walk with her father, and
school-room hours could not always be attended to.
As far as possible, therefore, I would leave the after-
noon free, as it is very desirable at this time to fall
into the sort of habits which it will be most easy to
adhere to when the quiet school-room life is at an end.
It is certainly to be wished that girls of sixteen
should dine at table whether there be company or not.
The complete seclusion of a school-room has many dis-
advantages: it forms a dangerous association between
the anticipation of enjoyment and the cessation of
study; and it occasions much of that shyness and
awkwardness of manner so common in England. I
may perhaps be told that these uncomfortable symptoms.
are more rare in the present day, and certainly the per-
fect assurance of which we see not a few specimens,
might almost make one regret the absence of shyness.
If we were forced to choose between a timid, retiring
girl, fearful of doing wrong or of being ridiculous at
every turn, and a self-confident woman of the world at
eighteen, to whom nothing seems new, nothing either
alarming or admirable, with little of youth except its
ignorance, we could hardly hesitate to prefer the former.
4
SHYNESS.
333
But I cannot believe that any such melancholy result
would follow from a rational education. Both extremes
mark a defect of early training: the one springs from
moral or intellectual shallowness, perhaps both; the
other in great measure from want of early familiarity
with the forms of society.
There lurks, however, in shyness, also some degree
of moral weakness; there is too constant a habit of
self-contemplation in shy persons; they go into society
without that genial spirit which simply seeks to give
and receive pleasure, and are occupied with the effect
they produce, instead of attending to others. Shyness
is commonly the fault of languid and unsympathetic
persons; the lively and imaginative, if occasionally
afflicted with it, may bring their mauvaise honte-as
the French so aptly term it-to the door; but once
within it, they are too easily roused, they too easily
catch the tone and interest of what is going on, to
remember themselves or their fancied deficiencies any
more. Apart from real shyness, however, there is a
degree of nervousness at being called upon to do any-
thing unusual,—to tell a story, for instance, or sing
before company,-which has no connexion with any
mental qualities, and which habit alone will lessen.
Persons with this feeling dread attracting particular
attention, but the ordinary forms of society, which are
formidable to the really shy, are too insignificant and
habitual to awaken any emotion. Timidity to this
extent is not necessarily suffering, but shyness is, and
to a high degree; I would, therefore, take every pre-
caution to save a young girl from it, and to let her
come into society able to enjoy conversation, and to
take such a part in it as befits her age.
The plan of studies I should propose for these two
334
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
years will differ essentially from that of the former
period. Science and mathematics, which together took
up two-thirds of the time then, will now be reduced to
narrow limits, rather with a view to keeping our ground
than to making much progress. The study of style
and composition, which occupied the other third, will
give way to a new class of reading; while history, which
had been laid aside, will now be resumed.
The first tendency of the young, as they acquire some
little knowledge and begin to join in conversation, is
towards precipitancy in forming opinions; they are in
a hurry to make up their bundle;' they are afraid of
appearing ignorant if they have not a settled view upon
whatever comes before them. It is the man of mature
thought and knowledge who ventures to say not only
'I do not know,' but I cannot know.' Education
must then, at the period now under consideration,
direct its chief efforts towards counteracting this ten-
dency, towards teaching the nature of sound opinions,
and the method of forming them.
This method requires a combination of intellectual
and moral qualities; not only knowledge, sound judg-
ment, and accurate reasoning, but also freedom from
prejudice, a simple desire to know the truth, and to de-
cide accordingly. Now is the time to enforce upon the
pupil, what a careful education will throughout have held
up as a principle, even before the young mind was fully
capable of appreciating it,—namely, that love of truth
should be the ruling, as it will be our most lasting
motive for seeking knowledge. Mere information may
gratify curiosity, or may become a means of advance-
ment to the ambitious, or a refuge against time to the
alone
idle; but the earnest desire to know what is true,
leads to that knowledge which satisfies the mind of man
LOVE OF TRUTH.
335
and enlarges its power. Real knowledge is truth,-truth
certain or probable, truth of fact, or truth of principles
or laws; truth demonstrated, or within the possibility
of demonstration; or truth which cannot be demon-
strated, but which comes home to our hearts with such
an irresistible conviction, that we feel the principles on
which it rests belong to a higher region than that within
which the ordinary powers of the understanding are
exercised. As truth in word and action is the life of
life in morals, so is love of truth, mentally considered,
the informing spirit of our intellectual existence. And
just as perfect integrity demands the sacrifice of all pri-
vate and selfish considerations that might warp the
judgment and bias action, so love of intellectual truth
requires the expulsion of every prejudice, of every
motive that tends to sway the mind from the one ob-
ject of ascertaining what is true. Our power of dis-
covering truth must depend on the extent of our know-
ledge and the vigour of our faculties; but sincerity
in our love and search for truth is subject to no such
conditions; it may be possessed by all, and so far as
it is possessed, our opinions will have some essential
characters of soundness, for they will be the genuine
product of our own minds, of our own reason working
upon the knowledge it was able to compass. There will
be in them neither conceit, nor pretension, nor party
spirit. Many a false opinion may lurk undetected or
be held in ignorance, but they will only await a ray of
better knowledge to be abandoned without hesitation.
When real love of truth is the governing principle
with parents or teachers, it will exercise a strong influ-
ence over the whole process of forming the young mind.
The habitual accuracy, the careful discrimination, the
dispassionate examination of any subject on which an
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
expression of opinion was necessary, the tolerance for
opposite views, and candid admission of doubt and igno-
rance in the elder mind, will have wrought almost uncon-
sciously into the younger the conviction that a different
mode of judging is unworthy either of an upright or a
reasoning being. The natural precipitancy of youth,
the unreasoning prepossessions or quickness to attach
moral censure to opinions which appear erroneous, will
have been repeatedly shamed by contrast with the dif-
ferent views expressed and acted upon by those who are
held in highest reverence. Even before they are capable
of accurate reasoning themselves, children brought up
under such influence will have learnt what is the basis
on which better instructed minds form opinions, and
they will not dignify with that name their own crude
notions or prejudices. We shall find few precocious
politicians or theologians among such children; but the
last and crowning labour of education will have been
rendered an easy task.
Throughout the studies of the last two years many
opportunities will have occurred to exercise the pupil
in the right method of judging on any subject brought
under consideration,—to explain the nature and value of
evidence, and the care necessary in drawing inferences.
Scientific reading is especially valuable in exhibiting
frequent examples of the manner in which some of the
finest minds have proceeded in this important opera-
tion. Moral training previous to this time has also
called judgment into action, and the mind at the age
we are speaking of has attained that degree of develop-
ment when, rightly or wrongly, it will begin to work
for itself. Now, then, it is time that it should gain a
clear view of the principles on which it ought to act,
and should know exactly what are the lines of demarca-
LESSONS TO BE INCULCATED.
337
tion between opinion, and maxims received from autho-
rity; between views influenced by feeling or association,
and convictions that satisfy the understanding.
Foremost among the lessons to be inculcated is the
folly of attributing moral merit or demerit to opinions.*
The person holding or rejecting them may deserve
praise or blame, but this will be for the purity or the
corruption of their motives, for their diligence in seek-
ing, or their indolence in neglecting to seek, evidence
of the truth; these are grounds on which to pass a
moral judgment, though we rarely have that knowledge
of another's heart which entitles us to do so; but the
opinion itself, a conclusion of the understanding, never
can come under that judgment. The reason may have
erred, knowledge may have been wanting, the infe-
rences may be utterly inconclusive; but no such opera-
tions include an act of the will, and therefore are not
amenable to the moral sense. We do not think so or so,
because we choose or because we wish it, but because
we cannot help it; because to our perception the balance
of truth is on that side and not on any other. The
reason may be obscured by ignorance or prejudiced
feeling, but once cleared of those obstructions, it can
no more be influenced by the will to perceive truth in
a certain direction than the body can be made to feel
heat or cold unless placed under the right conditions for
receiving those impressions, in which case it cannot re-
fuse to feel them. Again I repeat, the one moral con-
dition is sincerity of purpose; and concerning this we
can always be rigid in self-scrutiny, but can seldom
venture to pronounce judgment upon another. Unless
* See for a more full discussion of these points, Thoughts on Self.
Culture. Second edition, chap. v. sect. 3.
Z
338
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
this principle be firmly rooted in the mind, we shall
neither judge fairly of the opinions of others, nor be our-
selves in that calm condition so requisite for the im-
partial formation of our own.
In the next place, the young must learn what are
the degrees of knowledge necessary for forming opinion.
We do not say we have an opinion concerning geo-
metrical propositions, for we see their truth completely
and beyond dispute, if our understanding is able to
apprehend the conditions of the proof; but on other
subjects we feel that we are far from that simple and
single impression of absolute certainty. Sometimes, as in
a law of nature, we know the truth of the facts to have
been proved; but the process was long and difficult,
and the evidence such as we are ourselves incapable of
appreciating. Again, on some subjects that touch us
most nearly, as in religious or metaphysical speculation,
we never can attain proof at all; the evidence is of
every different degree of probability, and of such
a nature that different minds receive different im-
pressions of it, according to their various habits and
associations, knowledge and modes of thought. The
difference, then, between truth which admits of proof,
and that which rests on probability, must be carefully
explained; for if there be any confusion on this point,
there is necessarily confusion in our mode of viewing
the subjects, in our attempts to reason upon them, and
in our expectations of the result. If we expect cer-
tainty either in ourselves or others, when we are only
able to attain probability, we shall be miserable in the
consciousness of our own failure, and unjust in our con-
demnation of the failure of others.
A want of fairly estimating the value of probability is
the source at once of much intolerance and of much pain-
SCEPTICISM.
339
ful scepticism. Some persons are not aware that their most
cherished convictions rest on this ground of probability
only, and have no right, therefore, to be received as proved
conclusions; and these are the intolerant.
Others are
quite aware of the ground on which opinious rest, but
they under-estimate that ground, and do not therefore
give to the opinions the weight they deserve; they for-
get that in every important action of their lives they
decide upon probability, and would think it madness to
remain vacillating until the points on which they have
to determine could be absolutely proved. Again, when
they reject an opinion or doctrine because it cannot be
proved, because it belongs to that class of subjects on
which the human mind is incapable of attaining cer-
tainty, they forget that by that act of absolute rejection
they are proceeding as if they had attained it. They
overlook the fact that the negative side does not admit.
of proof any more than the affirmative. These persons
form that most offensive class, dogmatic sceptics.
Truth there is,-clear, undoubted truth,-on one side
or the other, but we are not able to discern it. Pro-
babilities, however, we can trace and weigh, and if we
are content to give them due weight, we can form a
judgment, subject indeed to error, and which we must
always remember is so subject, but such as will save
the mind from the restlessness of an ever-renewed,
ever-unsatisfied search, and from the suffering of ex-
treme scepticism.
Truly does it behove parents to shield their children
now against that form of suffering. Both those who
deprecate and those who hail the spread of free enquiry
into every region of knowledge and speculation, must
agree that the time is gone by when enquiry could be
arrested or evaded. The young of the present gene-
2 2
340
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
ration must be ready to give a reason for the faith
that is in them;' they must know why as well as what
they believe; they must be prepared to see the conflict
of opinions without losing the balance of their own
minds; to know that points which hitherto the scoffer
alone has ventured to attack, will be examined and
sifted and called in question now, by men as earnest as
those who uphold the other side; while their only
chance of mental peace is in knowing the real grounds.
of their own opinions, and in the determination to abide
by the truth as far as they are able to discern it, without
judging their fellow-creatures. More often than we
think, perhaps, a lurking consciousness of the unsound-
ness of opinions, or of the real uncertainty of the grounds
on which they were formed, is the cause of the fiercest
blustering against those who venture to think diffe-
rently. When we are quite sure that our assertions
are true, and that their truth ought to be evident to
others, or when we are certain that we have done our
best, and know that others can only do the same, we
can afford to be calm and tolerant in discussion. ·Im-
patience or fear of doubt creates irritation against those
who assume to have escaped from the condition that
torments ourselves; and then passion, not reason, takes
the lead.
It is essential also that the young mind should be
led to distinguish some important differences between
truths which are alike incapable of demonstration. Some,
—such as most of the great metaphysical questions that
have divided men in all ages,—belong entirely to the
region of speculation. An impenetrable veil hides the
truth on such questions from minds hemmed in by
mortal sense. So much mystery in what touches us
so nearly, brings to the heart an irresistible conviction
MORAL TRUTHS.
341
that we yet shall be satisfied, that a period of light and
knowledge will succeed this probation time of darkness
and ignorance; but except for the consolation of this
belief to those who are able to receive it, generation
after generation, age after age, have asked these mighty
questions in vain.
There is, however, another class of truths, which,
although not based on demonstration, admit of positive
conclusions in practice. These are moral questions
which lead to action, and come under the dominion of
conscience. We rarely, perhaps, enter speculatively
into these questions, and if we did so might often come
to wrong conclusions; but we know what, according to
our means of judging, our own conscience pronounces
to be right or wrong. If we err, it is our know-
ledge that is at fault, our knowledge of the circum-
stances or conditions of the case, not any speculation
upon the grounds of the moral question involved in
them. We do not go wrong because we do not know
whether truth or mercy are virtues or not, but because
we have not been able to discern what was the parti-
cular exercise of mercy or of truth that was called for
in that instance.
Nor, fortunately, is this element of certainty in such
important questions left to individual judgment alone.
On these points the immense variety of human minds
exhibit a general similarity of feeling which does not
exist upon merely speculative questions.
The great
principles of morals appeal with almost equal force to
the hearts and conscience of mankind generally, how-
ever much the influence of passion may stifle that
appeal for a time. Men commit crime indeed, but
they will not assert that to inflict an injury is right in
itself. They will continue in a long course of injustice,
342
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
cruelty, or ingratitude, while some will strive to show
how, in their particular case, circumstances extenuate
the evil; others, again, plead the violence of the passion
that blinded them for a time; and a few may glory in
their vices and boast of their contempt for virtue ;—but
even these will not deliberately attempt to prove that
ingratitude, injustice, and cruelty are not wrong, are not
violations of some law written in deeper characters than
the legislator's code. Accordingly, we hear the thief
complain of dishonesty among his comrades, and tyrants
reproach their minions for selfishness. So convinced
are we of truths of this nature, that we do not hesitate
to doubt the sanity of the man who, without strong
misleading motives, acts in violation of them; we con-
clude that his understanding must be either blinded by
passion, or infirm by nature, if he does not acknowledge
the ordinary distinctions between right and wrong
action, recognised in the social world of which he is a
member.
Some things there are which the bulk of mankind
hold as truths, which rest on intuitive convictions that
the understanding cannot reach to establish or deny.
Setting aside the question of a revelation which must
be established on other grounds, it is upon such con-
victions that we accept the belief in immortality, and
certain other points beyond the domain of experience
or strict reasoning. Beyond these again there is the
wide range of truths to which I have already alluded
in speaking of the value of probability, principles in
great measure deduced from a few fundamental convic-
tions, but liable to error in proportion to the complexity
of the subject, as in social and political questions, or to
the uncertainty arising from imperfect knowledge and
ill-disciplined reasoning power.
DOUBT INEVITABLE.
343
When practical points involving right and wrong
action become difficult to decide, it is because they are
partly mixed with speculative doctrines,-as, for instance,
in the questions above alluded to,-and then they are
liable to error from the same sources. That is, the
judgment is perplexed by complex relations, by the
variety of conflicting or seemingly conflicting interests,
and by the extent of knowledge and experience required
to be capable of coming to a sound conclusion; while
the difficulty is greatly increased in the majority of
cases by want of the habit of weighing evidence, and
also in questions that touch human life by allowing
the feelings to disturb the operations of the reason.
When the young mind has been thoroughly impressed
with the nature and extent of the difficulties in forming
opinions, and of the value of probability as our only
guide in so many momentous questions, it is time to
inculcate a sad, perhaps, but necessary lesson, namely,
acquiescence in doubt as the inevitable condition of our
earthly existence. All that has gone before has led to
this conclusion; now it must be brought forward in
plain, unvarnished guise, till the mind learns to contem-
plate it without dismay. We may make to ourselves
if we please a panoply of prejudices, and say we are
satisfied and certain, but we cannot, even when we
wish it, be always proof against reason; and once let
our artificial defence be overthrown, we are cast into a
sea of perplexities, and rendered miserable because we
have lost the certainty we had deemed a virtue. There
is but one true refuge. We must learn to bear doubt,
that our own ignorance may not impose upon us; we
must learn to bear doubt in order to exclude despair.
A desperate determination to escape from doubt is
but too common, and naturally most so with the
common,—and
344
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
young, who are terrified at their own boldness in
doubting when they have been led to fancy that all
besides themselves see clearly and rest in certainty.
But this rash impulse of a suffering mind that has
been cramped in the use of its reason leads to more
extreme views, violent changes, intolerance, and mental
anguish, than those who have the charge of the young
are apparently willing to believe; since there are few
points more neglected in education. Parents impose
opinions, discussion is pronounced irreverent, doubt an
indication of moral evil, yet the doubt will perhaps
intrude; the young then feel under a sense of reproba-
tion, they bear the anguish in silence because they
'dare not expect help or sympathy, and the struggle is
but too likely to end either in abject superstition under
the shelter of an infallible church; or in utter scepti-
cism, bearing away perhaps at the same time the prac-
tical principles of morals which had been rooted only
in the weak ground of speculative belief.
How often this has been the case with young men
carefully nurtured upon the Church Catechism and
Thirty-nine Articles, we need not pause to inquire.
Hitherto parents may have thought that their daughters
were safe from such dangers; but, as I said above, they
can indulge that flattering idea no more. Even were
not sceptical opinions making themselves loudly heard
on all sides in England, the literature of other countries
would bring them before us. In history, in philoso-
phical speculation, in the very pages of fiction, we find
them; if then women are to read at all, they must be
prepared to see a diversity of opinion upon every sub-
Ject that cannot be brought to the test of demonstration
or experience. A wild confusion of views may exist
with regard to practical points also, as we see in the
**
BORROWED OPINIONS.
345
political speculations and in the light literature that
touches upon social and domestic duties, especially in
countries where opinions and institutions are less settled
than in our own. Unfortunate, however, as this un-
doubtedly is, experience will recall men from any
serious error of this kind. The suffering and disor-
ganization following from any false views of action,
brings us back again to agreement upon practical prin-
ciples. To attempt to educate girls in ignorance that
such diversities of speculative opinion exist, or to per-
suade them that they exist only among the careless or
the unprincipled, is a fruitless and absurd attempt to
work good by evil means; to root what we believe to
be truth, in what we ought to know is a falsehood.
Borrowed opinions, that is, opinions received on the
authority of others,-we all of us, within different de-
grees, must hold; and in youth nothing can be more legi-
timate, or more fitting the modesty of ignorance, than to
rest satisfied with that foundation even on most impor-
tant subjects. But what is essential to a right state of
mind is that the young should never forget that such
is the foundation; that they cannot call such opinions
really their own, since their own reason has never
examined whether they are true or not, and that they
must always in candour be ready to avow that they
have accepted them on the warrant of knowledge and
capacity they feel to be superior to their own; whence
it follows that they are utterly unfit to pronounce any
judgment on the different conclusions to which others
may have been led by the exercise of their own under-
standing. Wherever there is the pretension of original
thought, when a bold assertion is made of opinions we
know to be borrowed, and, above all, when the slightest
blame of others for difference of opinion is uttered or
346
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
implied, then the teacher cannot be too severe in ex-
posing the unstable ground on which this dogmatism is
reared. She cannot point out too strongly how con-
temptibly feeble is the attempt to oppose as error what
we have not examined,—what we cannot even be sure,
therefore, that we are able to understand,-while we
do not even know the real grounds of that which we
would set up in opposition.
Parents naturally desire that their children should
embrace their opinions; and I believe perfect candour
will also be the best means of attaining that object.
The young would spontaneously expose all their diffi-
culties, lay bare their mental as they would their bodily
discomfort, if they felt sure of the same sympathy in
the one case as in the other; if their speculations, or
their enthusiasm, or their mistaken, ignorant views had
never from the dawn of intelligence known the chilling
rebuff of a laugh, or a sneer, a shocked look, or an
authoritative word putting down discussion. Parents
have little opposition to dread, when they have them-
selves drawn out and fostered their children's powers
of mind, instead, as is more commonly the case, of
merely witnessing their development, standing on the
defensive against any inconvenient display of
them.
When their own care has prepared the way, there is
little fear of their guidance being rejected. The young
are glad to shake off mere authority, but their self-
confidence is really of very slender growth; they want
to walk alone, for they instinctively feel that the dignity
of the rational being is in self-dependence; but they
gladly seek the help of those who will teach them how
to walk alone; they are easily amenable to the in-
fluence which they know is working in the same direc-
tion towards which their own desires tend. If, then,
INFLUENCE OF PARENTS.
347
parents are content never to check discussion unless it
arises from love of paradox, they will find their superior
knowledge and power of reasoning have its full weight.
When obliged to give a check on that account, the
reason should be simply stated. 'It is useless to argue
that point,' a mother may say, 'because you are not
in earnest just now; that mode of bringing forward
extreme views is adopted by many feeble-minded people
for the sake of startling others, and they do so for a
time till it is found out that such is their custom, and
then no one attends to what they may say,' &c. &c.
Such a reproof, accompanied with the perfect conviction
in the young mind that sincere endeavours to get at
truth, however wild or mistaken, will be met with
patient sympathy, will not fail to check the spirit of
mere paradox or love of opposition. Indeed the latter
dies away from want of food when the parent's desire
is clearly felt to be that their children should learn to
distinguish truth, not simply learn to assert that certain
opinions are true. If parents would but remember
what a fund of clinging, affectionate trust there is in
the young mind, they would not so often destroy it or
fling it away to strangers by the exercise of authority,
or the deadly influence of ridicule.
With regard to books that may give some assistance
at this period, Bailey On the Formation and Publication
of Opinions will be found very useful; it sets some of
the points we have been considering in a very clear and
simple light.* Sir James Mackintosh's Essay on
* Sir Cornewall Lewis's Essay on the Influence of Authority in
Matters of Opinion is also valuable. In some respects it may even be
preferred to Bailey's, owing to the lucidity of the style and the nume-
rous illustrations calculated to produce greater effect on the young
mind.
348
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Ethical Philosophy might also be read. There the
young student will see the different theories of morals,
and of the origin of moral sentiments, that have been
held by the best thinkers. The most important thing
to be learnt from this survey will be knowledge of the
limits within which earnest doubt and discussion upon
such points have ranged, and the nature of the evidence,
and of the reasoning on which the conclusions rest.
The teacher must judge how far her pupil is fit at seven-
teen to read the whole of a work of this kind, or
whether it is better to give instruction based on some
portions of it, or to select parts to be read.
Those re-
ferring to Butler's sermons, to Paley, and the ex-
amination of the utilitarian theory of Bentham and his
followers, will perhaps be the most valuable to study.
It
When the mind has no natural bent towards specu-
lation, and therefore that there is little danger of
disturbance or suffering from doubt and fluctuating
opinions, it is unwise to force this kind of reading.
is enough, then, if we destroy the foundations of in-
tolerance by clearly teaching the difference between the
moral and intellectual preparation needed to investigate
truth; the perfect honesty of intention which all can
secure for themselves, and none can judge of in another ;
and the sound knowledge without which accurate reason-
ing is impossible. Let us be careful to leave the timid
mind to the trust which gives it strength, the practical
mind to its devotion to that which it can grasp and
understand; we have done enough if we make it im-
possible that they should fancy that their indifference
or their submissive trust can be a rule whereby to con-
demn bolder or less happy minds.
Apart from the difficulties which arise from the very
nature of many subjects of speculation, we have also to
DIFFICULTIES OF LANGUAGE.
349
contend with the difficulties of language. In mathe-
matics, axioms and definitions allow no room for con-
fusion; in physical science, terms may be, and generally
are, rigorously defined; but in moral and social ques-
tions we are liable to the confusion of ignorance and
the confusion of sophistry-to the erroneous impres-
sions given by a bad style, and to fallacies of reasoning
cloaked by the ambiguities of words; and thence the
necessity of guarding ourselves by a careful study of
language, and of the logical method of language, against
ceaseless contention and error. It is only by a frequent
examination of the terms we use ourselves that we guard
even against self-deception. None of us perhaps are
aware to what extent our use of language is uncon-
sciously swayed by a host of associations, the gathering
of years, which have been woven into our minds, and
have coloured our views, so that it becomes next to
impossible to ascertain that even two persons apply
exactly the same meaning to the same word.
Through this, to a certain degree, inevitable con-
fusion, Logic is our surest guide. Supposing the utmost
pains to have been taken to limit and define the terms,
Logic teaches us the art of strict reasoning by means
of words, as Geometry taught it by means of the
relations of figure and space. It teaches us how to
frame a correct argument, and thus how to detect a false
one; how to place the members of a proposition so that
a double meaning or any other ambiguity of expression
shall be exposed by the very form of the argument, and
therefore rendered nugatory; it shows us how incorrect
inferences may be drawn from true premises, as like-
wise how a true inference may be drawn from unsound
premises. There is a small work that will be found
useful as an introduction to this study, namely, Early
350
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Lessons in Reasoning;* its admirable clearness and
felicitous illustration make it particularly apt for its
purpose, and betray the master's hand in that unpre-
tending form. Archbishop Whately's Logic, on which
the former is founded, may be read afterwards; the close
attention required, and the necessity of frequent repe-
tition, tend to work the subject thoroughly into the
mind. The chapter on Fallacies should be studied with
peculiar attention, as showing the source of much un-
conscious as well as intentional sophistry.
The short treatise on Rhetoric, also by Archbishop
Whately, will very fitly follow. It will serve to connect
in the young reader's mind these severe studies of
language considered as the instrument of reasoning,
with the lighter studies of the past year; proving to her
how intimate is the connexion between logical clearness.
and precision, and excellence of style.
This slight course of study of the art of reasoning
may be followed up with advantage by reading Sir
John Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural
Philosophy. Here we have set forth the method by
which the subject-matter of knowledge variously gathered
must be arranged so as to facilitate and secure the right
operation of the reason respecting it; the different modes
of investigation by observation and experiment, and the
slow and cautious steps by which accurate reasoning
proceeds in the midst of difficulties or uncertainties.
In a work of this kind, which draws its illustrations
from such a wide range of knowledge, there may be
many things that will not be immediately understood,—
allusions and references made to many subjects of which
the reader is ignorant; but, assuming that points of
* Published by John W. Parker and Son.
METHOD OF INVESTIGATION.
351
this kind will be noted down for enquiry and explana-
tion, they need be no hindrance to reading a work so
pregnant with valuable lessons. What we want is to
learn the method of scientific investigation and reason-
ing, and these are set forth with a clearness and force
equal to the author's thorough grasp of his subject.
We want especially to learn them because the same
principles, although not precisely the same method, must
be borne in mind when considering the subjects we
daily and necessarily deal with. That is, although we
cannot use experiment to ascertain truth in moral or
social questions, nor obtain the same accurate observa-
tion, nor make the same analysis of phenomena, nor
venture to generalize so boldly from ascertained facts,
yet the principles are alike; the same caution is re-
quired, the same close reasoning, the same freedom
from any motives apart from the wish to discern the
truth, the same patience and accurate observation, the
same constant recollection of what are the real condi-
tions of proof, of what can warrant us in concluding
the connexion of cause and effect between separate
phenomena.
But more than this do we learn from this work of a
real philosopher; we learn not merely by what methods,
but in what spirit we may venture to approach the
lofty regions of science; we find repeated that lesson
which we cannot con too often, that the value of
knowledge is not alone to foster the pride, or the power,
or the material enjoyments of man; but beyond all
these, to feed the insatiable aspirations of his immortal
soul.
Now, also, after the preparation afforded by the course
indicated above, the time is come to introduce the
young reader to the study of the evidences of Chris-
352
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
tianity. With some labour and attention, I believe
Butler's Analogy might be profitably read; or Paley's
Hora Pauline, if the mind is not yet ripe for follow-
ing Butler's close argument and great condensation of
thought. The history of the Bible is so important an
element in the external evidences of Christianity, that
it also requires to be carefully studied. Every day, new
researches in history and philology are throwing new
light upon the distant antiquity to which the Old Tes-
tament refers, as well as upon the period of social dis-
organization and conflict in the midst of which the
Christian Church was founded, and rose to power. The
choice of works will here so much depend on the
opinion of the parents and the section of Christians that
they belong to, that I shall content myself with pointing
out the importance of the subject. I am unacquainted
with any work of real value upon what is more essen-
tial still,—namely, the moral evidences of Christianity.
Perhaps when men have ceased to wrangle about words
confessedly beyond all clear definition, about the dates
and authority of Councils, about the particular epoch
which is entitled to hand down its traditions as sacred,
and that when they merge into the profane, about
Churches claiming infallibility, and Churches acting as
if they possessed it; when men have ceased from such
contentions, they may have leisure to dwell upon the
moral grandeur, the lofty spiritualism of Christianity;
and to examine what means its principles open or faci-
litate, for some higher purpose of social development
and happiness, than the dominion of one or another
Church, of one or another settled form of doctrines
relating to that unknown world to which we so earnestly
look for the solution of all mystery, the lifting away
the weary burden of ignorance and error and suffering.
STUDY OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
353
The course of reading marked out above will require
copious notes, frequently, also, abstracts or summaries
of opinions or theories. After what has been said before,
it seems almost needless to repeat the caution about
care and accuracy in making the notes, and frequent
examination by the teacher of the extent to which the
understanding has grasped and the memory retained
the matter studied. This reading will accordingly oc-
cupy the largest share of time. Study of physical
science may continue, either by taking up, according to
the pupil's choice, one of the subjects before glanced
at and reading some larger treatise upon it,—as, for
instance, Herschel's Astronomy, or Lyell's Elements of
Geology, or Mrs. Somerville's Physical Geography; or
else by reading some general sketch of natural philo-
sophy, Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, or Humboldt's
Aspects of Nature. But we could not spare now
more than one hour in the day to this branch of read-
ing, and once in the week that hour should be given
to keep up the slight knowledge of mathematics that
has been acquired. It is possible that so decided a
taste for mathematics or for some branch of science
may manifest itself, as to make the pupil desirous to
devote herself in great measure to that; but I conceive
that this could not be done without injury. The course
recommended above, which, as a part of mental disci-
pline, is more essential than any accession of knowledge,
will try the power of thought and attention consider-
ably, and together with the requisite notes will not
take up less than two hours daily throughout the
two years under consideration. When we add to
this the historical reading which we have presently
to consider, and which having also an educational
point in view, cannot be set aside, I think it would
A A
354
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
be unadvisable to admit of another close and arduous
study.
The motives for adhering to the original plan can be
explained to the young girl. Far from discouraging or
slighting her own tastes, every wish of the kind should
be warmly welcomed, and she should feel that the grati-
fication of them is only delayed till a certain school-
room course is over. She will then be free to follow
the bent of her own mind, and in the mean time may
feel assured that the studies which tend to enlarge and
strengthen her general capacity, and to give her more
ready power over the operations of her intellect, are
increasing the facility with which she will hereafter
follow any pursuit of her own. Thankful should the
mother be when education has roused in her daughter
some decided studious taste to the gratification of which
she looks forward; she has thus discovered for her the
armour she needs against that idleness which is sure to
be her worst foe. One strong intellectual taste, one
incentive to mental activity, and the young girl is
rescued from more than half the perils that await her
in the world.
With regard to historical reading, little more can be
done during the time we have to dispose of, than to learn
the proper method of studying history, to make some
acquaintance with subjects which are essential to a
comprehension of it, and to glance at the most impor-
tant periods to which future study should be devoted.
Should there be a taste for historical reading, the field
is abundantly ample; and it may be hoped that to a really
cultivated mind the ease of reading narrative will not
His-
be, as it too often is, the principal inducement.
tory so considered is little more valuable than fiction,
and it is not to provide a mere pastime that I have
IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY.
355
postponed historical reading till the mind was some-
what ripened by other studies.
All women will probably, at some period of their
lives, be more or less engaged in the labour of educa-
tion. With rare exceptions, this essential part of their
natural vocation falls to their share directly or indirectly;
often, indeed, does it happen that the labour is only
the more varied, and in some respects the more arduous,
because she has no children of her own. It is this
which gives so much importance in female education to
the study of ethical, and partly also to purely meta-
physical questions. In order to influence other minds,
and especially to be enabled to draw out their powers
for certain determinate purposes, we must know some-
thing of the nature of those powers, of the feelings and
motives of action, and of the laws which regulate intel-
lectual development. It is also with a view to this branch
of female duty that the study of history is important.
Debarred from large practical experience and knowledge
of the world, it is, as I have had occasion to notice
before, by this yet wider survey of human action that
women must study the application of philosophical
truths, and from the consideration of the principles
which have led on a large scale to happiness or misery,
to success or failure, to the discovery of truth or the
cherishing of error, that they must learn what are the
principles, the aims, the convictions and motives which
the educator should nourish or condemn. I am aware
that I am in part repeating what has been said before,
but I am led to do so, because the great difficulty of
persuading the world that women can have a serious
and extensive view in their studies, is what keeps the
latter at so low a standard, and makes women so listless
about them. The soul cannot put forth her strength
A A 2
356
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
and fervour for what is the mere fashion of the day,
what has no connexion with earnest life and its inte-
rests; but let it be proved that such a connexion does
exist, that it is intimate and strong, reaching to what is
dear and sacred to all, and the apathy will vanish from
every mind that has imagination enough to conceive a
great purpose, and sufficient energy to work up to it.
Nor are such minds uncommon; I speak of no rare
gifts of intellect, but only of such powers, moral and
intellectual, as are daily wasted in the listless, objectless
inactivity of woman's life, till at some call of duty
they are often roused to noble exertion.
There is one subject of such immense importance in
its bearing upon the study of history, and the intelligent
comprehension of the political and social questions agi-
tated under our own eyes, that it cannot be passed over :
-I allude to political economy, some acquaintance
with which must preface the regular course of historical
reading. In many respects even practically this subject
is of great importance in female education. Women
to whom the detail of charities is so constantly trusted,
who sway expenditure through so many channels, who
have so much influence over the ignorant both through
domestic servants and the poor whom they visit in
their own homes,-women are miserably unprovided for
this wide circle of duties if they are ignorant of the
principles of that science which deals with so large a
portion of our social relations. So likewise in reading
history, this knowledge is requisite to give us the key
to some of its most valuable lessons, while in their turn
historical events afford the clearest illustrations of the
principles of political economy.
I cannot pause here to argue with those who contend
that women have no concern with politics, and therefore
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
357
that an attempt to introduce such questions into their
education is absurd. I must be allowed to refer to
what I have already said on that subject in a former
work.* It will be time to give a further answer to
the objection when it shall have been proved that
ignorance of all connected with political and social
questions prevents women from exercising a mischievous
influence on the public conduct of men. It must, how-
ever, be admitted that in introducing either logic or
political economy into an early educational course, we
are forcing a somewhat premature consideration of wide
and abstruse subjects. But circumstances allow no
choice. At the
At the age when young men are beginning
these studies at college, girls are already in the world;
some have even taken upon themselves the grave duties
of life; at any rate, for all alike regular tuition is over.
Once more, we must teach them early or not at all.
We may, however, hope that the systematic education
I have supposed girls to receive, the efforts made to
draw out their powers of thought and reasoning, will
have brought their minds to an earlier maturity than
we could expect to find in boys who have had mere
class-teaching in classics and mathematics.
In our slight study of physical science we were forced
to restrict ourselves to the most elementary works,
partly on account of the age and unexercised faculties
of the pupil, but in still greater measure owing to the
mass of other knowledge, often of a deep and abstruse
nature, required to read the best works on those sub-
jects; as, for instance, knowledge of mathematics if we
would read any large treatise on astronomy, of physio-
logy if natural history be our object. But in political
* Thoughts on Self-Culture, p. 295, &c., second edition.
358
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
No wide range
economy this difficulty does not exist.
of knowledge is necessary to make the best treatises as
intelligible to a careful reader as the most elementary
sketch. And this is no small advantage; for wherever
the works of great writers can be studied, we gain not
only the pleasure of contemplating a subject in the
light in which a man of genius has placed it, but we
also, by that means, enlarge our acquaintance with
literature of a high order.
In political economy we will then go boldly to the
fountain-head at once, and read Adam Smith's Wealth
of Nations. In no mere manual shall we find the prin-
ciples of the science unfolded with the clearness, the
power of illustration, and the thorough grasp of the
subject that mark the work of the great master him-
self. The omissions or errors, or points only partially
developed, that subsequent writers have corrected or
exposed, will be of no consequence to us; on this, as
on all other subjects educational studies have glanced
over, a wide field for labour remains, if the young
student should have the wish to return to it later; a
conscientious study of this one great work is sufficient
for the present.
We next come to consider the proper method of
reading history itself. The early course our pupil has
gone through has been some initiation into this art;
she has learnt the value of geography as an accessory to
history; and of chronology, not as giving the succession
of dates merely, but far more as keeping before the
mind the contemporaneous condition of different coun-
tries. Smyth's Lectures on Modern History will afford
help for what remains to be learnt of the right method
of historical study.
It is not that the actual course of reading suggested
METHOD OF READING.
359
by Smyth should be followed; for, in general, the minute-
ness of research he recommends, and the books of diffi-
cult access which he marks as important to be read,
make his scheme as a whole inapplicable and in some
respects undesirable for our purpose. The real value
of his work to us is in the soundness and liberality of
his political views, alien from all extremes, and the
opinions given on books and writers which the young
reader cannot form a judgment of herself. These lec-
tures also afford admirable lessons in the mere art of
reading, which, as I have before remarked, is less easy
than is commonly imagined. The examples that he
gives of inferences of wide import to be drawn from
passages which appear at first sight to be of little mo-
ment, the importance which he shows must sometimes
be attached rather to the silence of an historian on
some particular point, than to pages of narrative on
which he has spent all the graces of style,—these are of
real instruction to the inexperienced reader. She will
see how true is that saying of Montaigne, quoted with
reference to historical reading by Bolingbroke :-' I read
in Livy,' he remarks, 'what another man does not, and
Plutarch read there what I do not.'*
The field of historical reading is so wide, that with
so little time as we now have before us, the great diffi-
culty will be to choose the periods which it is most
essential to dwell upon; and that mostly for the sake
of an apprenticeship in historical study, leaving all else
for future reading.
In our early course, Tytler's or Millot's Universal
Histories were all that was read of ancient history.
Every imaginative child will also, no doubt, have read
* Bolingbroke, Letters on History, p. 32, ed. 1770.
360
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
Pope's Homer and Dryden's Virgil for her own pleasure;
and if her taste for reading has been carefully directed,
and her childhood was saved from stories of good little
boys and girls, she will have read in like manner many
of Plutarch's lives, and have had her favourites and her
aversions among the heroes of Greece and Rome. If
time presses much, this must suffice for the present,
since modern history is more important as a lesson,
and the future will afford ample leisure for making
acquaintance with the great historians of antiquity, in
translations at least if not in the originals, and for
reading the works of real research which the labour of
the moderns upon that ancient field has produced. If,
however, we find that no such pressure of hurry exists,
it would be well to take some rapid survey of ancient
history before beginning the modern, which has been
so incalculably influenced by the tone of thought and
association inherited from antiquity.
The plan I would suggest in this case is to take
as the text-book Dr. Smith's History of Greece*-
a perfect model of an historical compendium-and as
we come to the most interesting portions, whether as
regards political events, or great men, or literature,
then to refer to other books, such as biographies, por-
tions of the ancient historians, and of the great writers.
both in prose and verse. For instance, besides reading
the lives of some of the great leaders in Plutarch,† if
* A History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Roman Con-
quest. By William Smith, LL.D., Editor of the Dictionary of Greek
and Roman Antiquities, &c.
+ Plutarch should, if possible, be read in the French translation
of Amyot, since that work is highly prized for the purity and force
of the old French language, before it was smoothed down by the
writers of the seventeenth century. The translations of Herodotus
and of Thucydides, in the Classical Series published by Bohn, are, I
ANCIENT HISTORY.
361
these have not been read before, we may take the account
of the Persian war in parts of the four last books of
Herodotus, which will give us the interest of contempo-
rary narrative. We gain the same advantage by read-
ing the war against Syracuse in the sixth and seventh
books of Thucydides, and thus make acquaintance in
some slight measure with the style and manner of the
most naïf and of the most philosophical historian of
antiquity. If time allows, and the pupil shows suffi-
cient interest in the subject, portions of Xenophon's
Retreat of the Ten Thousand might be read in his third,
fourth, fifth, and sixth books; or this most romantic
episode of military history may be read in Grote's ad-
mirable sketch from Xenophon, in the ninth volume of
his History of Greece. With regard to other writers,
although it may be yet more vain to read Plato than
Homer in the feeble transcript of a modern language,
yet rather than remain altogether ignorant of what his
genius bequeathed to all future generations we must be
content with translation, and make our pupil read at
least the Apology of Socrates, the Crito, and the Phædo.
The actual mode of thought will be better known thus
than by any mere modern comment upon Plato's works,
however eloquent. So with the great dramatists. When
the chapter concerning them in the history has been
read,turn to the translations of Eschylus and Sophocles,
and read two or three of the great masterpieces of
each.* No young reader with any touch of poetic feel-
believe, as good as any we have, and are very cheap and accessible.
Plato is also in the same series, but the French translation by Cousin
is better than any we have in English.
* The extremely interesting account of the Dramatic Literature in
the 8th volume of Grote's History of Greece might be read at this
time. There is a German translation of Eschylus and of Sophocles, by
Minckwiz, which is better than anything we have in English; but
362
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
ing will lay down even a translation of the Agamemnon
or the Antigone, without longing for the time when
she may read more. This is the feeling which we
should lose no opportunity of encouraging.
When the history of Greece is brought to a close,
we then turn to that of Rome, premising always that
the old caution of following the contemporary chro-
nology of the two has been borne in mind throughout.
Here we may take Dr. Schmitz's history as our text-
book, to be used as we used Smith's before.
If the pupil can read Latin easily, she should enjoy
the pleasure of reading at least the early legends of
Rome in Livy. Beyond this we have not time to
linger over the rise of this wonderful people, who un-
fortunately began to influence the rest of the world
when the era of their truest strength and noblest
patriotism had passed away. The real modern interest
of Roman history begins when gigantic conquests, blind-
ing the people to the loss of freedom, first brought
Western Europe to view, and were followed by the
Augustan age, whose powerful intellects bequeathing to
us an immortal inheritance, console us in some measure
for the existence of its warriors.
Here, as we did before with Greek writers, we may
select some portions to give life to history and inspire
an interest in the literature. One or two of Cicero's
orations should be read, if possible in the original, as
well as some of his familiar letters, which carry us to the
very heart of a life so unlike our own, with all its human
sameness of hopes, fears, passions, and ambitions.
even through the medium of Potter's version, the mind is opened to a
new range of images and of impressions of life and thought, which
otherwise remain sealed up for ever to those who cannot read these
magnificent poems in the original.
MODERN HISTORY.
363
Virgil, I suppose to be already known, and probably
also some odes of Horace, if any Latin has been learnt.
If time allowed, we might now take Tacitus for the
history of the early emperors, and obtain some idea of
what the feelings of a true Roman were, while Rome
was sinking deeper in corruption and servility at home,
in proportion as she extended her empire afar. The
history of the Roman Empire through five centuries is
a fine study, if we wish to learn what luxury can do for
the happiness of individuals, and love of glory for the
well-being of nations; but we cannot dwell upon these
topics now, and may therefore be content with the in-
formation to be gained from Dr. Schmitz, and after him
from Niebuhr's last ten lectures on Roman history, which
brings the rapid sketch down to the final overthrow of
the Western Empire, late in the fifth century.*
We must now pass hastily over the dawn of the modern
world, with its new religion triumphantly rising to reign
over the crumbling civilization of antiquity; the birth
of Mahomedanism and its wild career of victory; and
the gradual ripening of the rude energies of those
northern hordes, so despised by Greek intellect and
Roman pride, and yet destined to outstrip both Greece
and Rome in knowledge and in power. Sources of in-
formation about this period are pointed out in Smyth's
lectures, and to them the young student can refer at
some future time. Our educational course of history
must be restricted to epochs of more completely
modern interest, the right comprehension of which
bears more immediately on the great questions of
civil and religious liberty, such as we now under-
*If there be any turn for political or philosophical speculation in
the pupil's mind, she might add to this course, Montesquieu's Grandeur
et Décadence des Romains.
364
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
stand them, and on social life and commercial enter-
prise under those forms from which our own directly
spring.
(
The history of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies is that which deserves to concentrate attention.
The former slight study of the histories of the dif
ferent countries of Europe, and the careful comparison
of their chronology, will enable the pupil to take up a
detached portion in the manner now proposed without
fear of confusion. In order to give, however, some
notion of subjects which those slight general histories
will have passed over, such as the feudal system, the
rise of chivalry, the influence of the Crusades &c., it
will be advisable to read Robertson's View of the
State of Europe,' prefixed to his Life of Charles the
Fifth, which embraces precisely that period from the
subversion of the Roman Empire to the beginning of
the sixteenth century,' which we do not propose to study
in detail. To this might be added the chapters re-
ferring to the twelfth, thirteenth, and two following cen-
turies, in Sismondi's English abridgment of his History
of the Italian Republics. The wealth and power to
which those small States rose, their enlightened attention
to commerce, and the love of the fine arts among them,-
to which we owe so much, not only for the efforts of
modern genius but for the preservation of the antique,-
the rise of the first great modern literature, to which
Dante's name alone would suffice to give imperishable.
glory, the ardour for the study of Greek which saved
inestimable treasures of ancient literature and con-
tributed to revive the love of letters throughout Europe,
-all these things give to that portion of Italian history
an interest we seek for in vain elsewhere at that period;
an interest apart from that of a sadder cast afforded by
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
365
its political vicissitudes and the usurpations of ecclesi-
astical dominion. The study of Italian does not enter
into my plan. The language is easily mastered without
help for the purposes of reading, and few educated per-
sons who have time would fail to acquire it for that
object. Lives of the great writers and artists, among
whom so many,-as Dante, Petrarch, Leonardo da Vinci,
and Michael Angelo,—took a part in public affairs, are
to be found in English; they will give additional in-
terest to the narrative of the period, and, we may trust,
kindle a strong desire to study the language at some
future time.
I should wish, in considering the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, to take England as the centre
point, turning to other countries as one or another
plays an important part. I take the history of England
as the basis, because it is that which the young reader
necessarily requires to be most familiar with; but the
whole course of reading should refer to Europe generally,
as acted upon to a certain extent by the same causes. It
is the history of opinion, and of the progress of society
as influenced by the gradual enfranchisement of opinion,
that gives such importance to those two centuries, during
which so powerful an impetus was received, and so many
striking changes manifested. It is this view which the
teacher should keep before her pupil's mind.
For example: the first great phenomenon of that
time is the Reformation; but if we simply read a nar-
rative of what was done and said by the Reformers or
their Royal patrons in Germany, England, France, or
Switzerland, we get little idea of the real nature and
importance of the movement. The young reader must
be led to see that this apparently sudden rebellion
against the corruption of long unquestioned authority
366
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
was the effect not of the outraged feelings of one man,
but of slowly working changes. It should be pointed
out that light had gradually been stealing over long-
benighted Europe; that here and there, in all quarters,
men who thought most, had been the foremost to hail
the dawn; that many had begun to see that the fetters.
they had worn in the dark were ropes of sand; that the
ramparts which had hemmed them in, and made inquiry
into all beyond seem a daring impiety, were shadowy
and unreal. It will be seen that as the few learnt to
think thus and act by this light, public opinion was
gradually influenced, till the spirit of opposition waxed
strong, and the boldest rebels formed a sympathizing
audience; that in literature, in science as in theology,
that same spirit showed itself; and thus that revolt
against mere authority began, which, crowned with so
many victories, has been the ceaseless struggle of every
subsequent generation.
It should be noticed how the great instrument of
intellectual freedom, the press, was looked upon with
prudent suspicion from the beginning by those whose
power was based on popular ignorance. Thus in 1515,
less than a century after the invention of printing, and
before Luther had raised his voice, Leo X. laid severe
restrictions on the liberty of the press; knowledge was
felt to be the future enemy, daily gathering strength
for the contest. A glance at science will show the
same spirit and the same opposition. In 1530, the
very year the Protestant party signed the declaration
of Augsburg, Copernicus ventured to teach that scien-
tific doctrines which had been held as most sacred, and
rested on the apparent testimony of the senses as well
as on the authority of the Church, must be abandoned.
And although, even a century later, Galileo suffered per-
PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE.
367
secution for maintaining the bold theories thus enounced,
they continued to gain ground till the labours of Kepler
and Newton established their truth and put a glorious
close to the contest. It will be seen that in other
sciences besides astronomy giant strides were also made;
while, guided by the same free spirit, history, juris-
prudence, and politics were studied in a different manner
from that in which they had ever been studied before.
Then also literature, which had previously shown little
life north of the Alps, as though inspired with the
mighty promise now held forth to future generations,
shone in full splendour during those two eventful cen-
turies,―centuries which in Germany began with Luther
and ended with Leibnitz, in France beginning and
ending with two of the most powerful satirists the
world has known, including all the writers except Voltaire,
whose works rank as standard models in the language;
which gave birth to all the literature of real genius
Spain has ever possessed; and which in England boast
the long list of glorious names, from Spenser to Locke
and Dryden, of which the nation may well be proud.
Again, let it be noticed that midway in that career of
intellectual progress,—at the beginning of the seven-
teenth century,—Bacon shed the light of philosophical
method upon the daily enlarging field of knowledge.
Men began to hold closer communication with each
other in different countries, although at the same time
the more frequent use of national languages by great
writers, as, for instance, Bacon and Descartes, who
both used the vulgar tongue for some of their works,-
indicates a wider public at home. Finally let it be
shown that wherever the spirit of freedom, struggling
for utterance in every country of Europe, was stifled as
in Italy and Spain, the glory hath departed from the
368
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
nations; where it triumphed, as in England, a succes-
sion of fearful struggles ended in peace, stability, and
national greatness; the Revolution of 1688 being as fit
a crowning act to the political history of these centuries
as the poetry of Milton and the discoveries of Newton
were fitted to seal their glory in other paths of
progress.
It is almost beyond the limits of this section to enter
even so far into subjects of this nature; it might seem
that I should have been contented on this, as on other
branches of this course, to recommend books, but not
to enter upon the matter of the studies; I felt it neces-
sary, however, to indicate at least in a few words what
are the points, what the views and reflections which
make one period more important to be studied than
another, and to draw attention once more to the essen-
tial office the teacher must perform in conducting studies
of this nature. If we simply put books into a young
person's hands, we do little more than give an impulse
to self-education; the real educator prepares the way
for what those books are to teach, brings principles to
view, sifts out the trivial and concentrates attention on
what deserves labour and thought, giving prominence
to those relations of facts often so much more important
than the facts themselves, but which are not seen by
the inexperienced student. To read through a given
number of volumes of Hume's History of England in
ordinary school-room fashion, is doubtless a pleasant
pastime, and will accustom the ear to the charm of an
admirable style,—so admirable that the falsehood em-
balmed in it will assuredly descend to the latest gene-
rations that speak our language; but for all that makes
the study of history useful, such reading were better
left alone; since we know not which is most likely to
HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
369
mislead—Hume's honest prejudices or his dishonest
party spirit. And truly, value for no one thing that
Makes men glorious and a place divine,
is like to grow in the young mind, from blindly fol-
lowing one who upholds the integrity of the Stuarts and
contemns the assertors of civil and religious liberty; who
decries Bacon and places Shakespeare below Racine.*
Nevertheless, for the history of England during this
period I recommend taking Hume. In a mere literary
point of view his work is one which cannot be passed
over, and it is better read when the teacher's warning
is at hand. But according to the plan I propose it
will be the text-book only, correctives will be duly
resorted to, and whenever events of importance bring
some other nation prominently forward foreign works
must be consulted, and if possible read in their own
language. Ranke's History of the Popes gives the
best view of the rise and progress of the Reformation,
and of the efforts made to oppose it, especially of the
establishment of the Jesuits, that master-work of the
opponents of spiritual freedom. If the pupil be not
acquainted with German, she can read this work in one
of the few good translations we possess from that lan-
guage.+ But the whole work may not be necessary,
portions relating to the dissension among the petty
princes of Germany, and perhaps some theological
discussions may be omitted. Lacretelle's Guerres de
Religion presents a striking picture of some of the con-
sequences of the Reformation in France, and Blunt's
History of the Reformation in England, scanty and im-
* This opinion is expressed more than once in his private letters.
See Burton's Life of Hume.
+ By Mrs. Austen.
B B
370
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
perfect as it is, will in some respects correct Hume's
account, which betrays in every line the writer's indif-
ference to the principles which were brought into con-
flict. The chapters in Hallam's Literature of the Middle
Ages which relate to the sixteenth century should now
be read, to follow the progress of intellect in other fields,
and as we proceed with the reign of Queen Elizabeth
it will be well to turn to Hallam's Constitutional History,
and read at least his account of Hooker and of the first
promulgation of views both on Church and State hitherto
unknown, or at least shunning open discussion.
We may now pass rapidly on, satisfied with Hume's
narrative and keeping in view the contemporary history
of other nations,* till we come to the Fronde in France
and to the Great Rebellion in England, movements as
unlike in character as in their results, but both indi-
cating the progress of the spirit of freedom. The
history of the Fronde to be carefully studied has to
be sought in a mass of memoirs and other writings
unfit for a course such as I am indicating; we must be
satisfied with reading the account in a general history
of France,† and portions of Madame de Motteville's
memoirs will afford an amusing comment on the his-
torian's narrative, and also show what was the feeling.
excited by the first news of the successes of the popular
party in England and the distress and danger of the
royal family.
In considering this momentous period in England,
* Hénault's Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire de France, is a
valuable book of reference for this purpose.
† For a short history, that by La Vallée is very good, but portions
of Sismondi's large work might now be read. The best history of the
Fronde is that by M. de Saint-Aulaire; but, perhaps, such a course as
I am recommending can hardly afford to comprise two volumes on one
short period.
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
371
The
it will be well to turn from Hume to Clarendon.
open honest fervour of the partisan is a relief after
the mock candour of the historian; and the style of
the two works affords also a curious contrast well worth
studying, marking the distance of a century in our
literature. Foster's Lives of the Great Men of the
Commonwealth will show the opposite views of the
same events and the same characters, and are full of
interest. A higher interest still attaches to the contem-
porary memoirs of Mrs. Hutchinson, which surely no
woman will read without being moved. For a course
so slight as this must inevitably be, it is not perhaps
advisable to attempt more in elucidation of this period
than the works named above.* When Hume-whose
history closes with the Revolution of 1688—is finished,
Macaulay will be our best guide to the end of the century.
His masterly sketch of the state of England in early
times and down to the Restoration, and the vivid manner
in which he brings men and events before the mind of
the reader, will not fail to make a strong impression on
the young student; some of the discussions and reflec-
tions on constitutional questions in the third volume
might perhaps be passed over as too long and detailed
for our purpose; but the tone of political opinion,
liberal yet moderate, based so firmly on principles im-
* I suppose some acquaintance to have been made during the read-
ing of the previous two years with the great writers in different depart-
ments of our own literature; but when reading the political history,
frequent reference should again be made to them and to the general
literary character of the period, as well as to the history of scientific
discovery in England and abroad. Unfortunately, we are not rich in
works throwing light on manners and the condition of the people; and
those we have, including almost the whole dramatic literature of the
period referred to, except Shakespeare, are seldom fit to be placed in
the hands of the young.
B B 2
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
portant to national life, will, it may be hoped, be no
less impressive even to a young mind, if somewhat
trained to consider these things, than the picturesque
descriptions of men and manners.
In looking over the contemporary history of Europe
during the latter half of the seventeenth century, nothing
requires close attention except the reign of Louis XIV.
in France. This, the grand siècle of French literature,
and the period which by its military madness, its ex-
travagance and errors of government, became the seed-
time of after miseries and ultimately of the Revo-
lution, is always full of interest. Voltaire's Siècle de
Louis XIV. will perhaps be the best work for our pur-
pose; it is short, it sums up in his admirable manner
the characteristic points of political, social and literary
history, and it is a good specimen of that great writer's
best style with which it is advisable that the young
reader should become acquainted. Most of the eminent
French writers of that epoch I suppose her to have been
introduced to in the course of her previous studies in
literature. Some of Bossuet's masterpieces of eloquence
would be fitly read here, funeral orations over those
whom the historian presents in their glory or their
courtly splendour. Labruyère gives an inimitable por-
traiture of manners, and Madame de Sevigné's Letters
also let one into the intimate life of the age; besides
that, no one studying French can omit to read them
for the sake of their unequalled grace and charm of
language.
I have so far entered with some detail into the course
of reading which I propose should lead the young
student to appreciate those two eventful centuries.
Abundant sources of further information exist within
easy reach, but it seemed necessary that I should mark
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
373
out what I believe might suffice for the purpose we
have in view; it must be for the teacher to judge, ac-
cording to the time she can command and to the capa-
city of her pupil, how far she might be forced to con-
tract, or might afford to enlarge it.
Other periods there are which ought to be better
studied than through the medium of a general history,
-such as the rise of our colonies in North America,
and the war which ended in their independence. The
history of British India, concerning which the igno-
rance of the public generally is truly singular-and the
French Revolution, with its wide-spreading consequences
working even now in different nations of Europe;-
but of these I shall say little, leaving it to the teacher
to apply to these portions of history the same method
employed before. The early part of the eighteenth
century may be passed lightly over, the latter half is
only too full of stirring interest. Here, as before, some
narrative must be taken as the text-book, and portions
of other works, biographies more especially, must be
consulted. Lives of Washington and of Franklin, for
instance, should be read; Burke's speeches on the
American War, with his letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol,
should be studied, and not for their historical interest
or political wisdom alone, but as masterpieces of
English writing.
There is a short history of British India by Mr.
Gleig, originally published in the Family Library,
which will serve our purpose better than works of more
research and detail. Macaulay's two brilliant sketches of
the lives of Clive and of Hastings, in his Essays, should
not be omitted. With regard to the French Revo-
lution, so much has been written that the only difficulty
is to choose; the sixth volume of Lacretelle's Histoire
374
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
de France pendant le dix-huitième Siècle contains a
Tableau de l'Etat de la France avant la Révolution
which is worth reading. M. de Barante gives deeper
views of the causes of the Revolution in his Tableau
de la Littérature du dix-huitième Siècle, a short but ad-
mirable sketch. For the narrative of events, Thiers's,
as being a work of some reputation and well written,
is perhaps the best to select, but with a careful recol-
lection of his unfairness, both nationally and as a
political partisan. These are faults not perhaps to
be avoided in studying times so near our own, and
which stirred up passions not yet set at rest. It is
difficult to select, as I said, among so many histories
and biographies; but there is one which I must name
to be avoided, lest the reputation of the writer, and the
beauty of his style, should make the choice fall upon
him. I allude to Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins,
in which the name of history is desecrated to the mere
dramatizing of human passions and emotions.
good and the bad-heroism and infamy-philosophic
patriotism, and the most debasing ambition, all come in
one sense alike before the author; all serve to dress up
the hero of the hour. No one to whom political or
private principle is dear would put into young hands
so melancholy a perversion of the great lessons of his-
tory. The fact that such a work is from the pen of
M. de Lamartine, from the man whose own steady
moral courage contributed more perhaps than anything
to save France in 1848, only makes it the more sad.
The
If Thiers's history be read to the end, embracing the
whole of Napoleon's wonderful career, the teacher must
not fail to administer the necessary antidotes to what
is most false or exaggerated in the estimation of this
idol of national vanity. After reading the brilliant
TIME REQUIRED FOR THIS COURSE.
375
campaigns in Italy, a few chapters of Botta* will show
all the suffering caused by hopes of freedom raised only
to be dashed to the ground. When Thiers leaves the
issue of the battle of Trafalgar doubtful, it may be well
to read Southey's Life of Nelson.† When the victories
in Germany, and the preparations for yet more extended
conquest have been passed in review, let us turn to
Segur's account of the Russian campaign, and to Nei-
buhr's letters referring to that period, or to the extracts
from different biographies collected by Mrs. Austen in
her volume upon Germany in the nineteenth century,
and thus lead the young mind, which is but too easily
fascinated even by the errors of genius, to contemplate
the reverse of the medal that is struck to commemorate
the glory of conquest.
Between two and three hours daily have been set
apart for this course of reading with the requisite
making of notes. But the proper study of Adam
Smith alone will take up a considerable time and his
work should be read again when the historical course is
finished, and when, therefore, the student's mind is
more impressed with the growing importance, as modern
civilization advances, of all those questions which political
economy deals with. Such being the case, it is possible
that the entire course indicated above may be found too
long. It can be materially reduced by omitting either
the ancient history or else the latter portion relating to
the eighteenth century; this must be regulated by the
pupil's tastes or the teacher's judgment. If the young
girl have a love for historical reading it is safe to let
* Storia d'Italia continuata da quella di Guicciardini sino, al
1814. Da Carlo Botta.
+ As one of the most simple and admirable prose narratives in our
language this short work should at any rate be read.
376
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
her make a choice now, since she is sure enough to
return later to the ground she has thus left unexplored,
if she does not possess that taste, and especially if in-
dolent in general about reading, it is best to leave her
no option, but to make her read while in the school-
room what it is really requisite that she should know-
namely, the modern history brought down to the peace
of 1815.
In no case would I omit the study of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, nor abridge it
unless there were really not intelligence enough, not
the capacity of being roused to sufficient interest to
make the lessons we wish to teach instructive and im-
pressive. If the mind is of that calibre which cannot
be awakened to philosophical speculation at all, if after
due pains have been taken to draw out its powers and
lead it to some independent exercise of them, we find
that it can only grasp facts, that it follows the succes-
sion of events without ever caring to look for a cause,
it may perhaps be as well to shorten the course in some
degree. Yet let us hesitate long before we give up any
portion of knowledge we have desired for good reasons
to impart; since that inert mind may yet wake up to
activity, that tardy intelligence may be quickened by
those very appeals to it that seem so hopelessly fruit-
less. If a generally indolent unintelligent mind showed
a decided taste for one subject, undoubtedly that should
be made use of; we cannot do in this case as with the
better endowed, follow steadily our own method of in-
struction, leaving them to cultivate their chosen pursuits
later. In the latter case, the question is simply between
adhering to well considered principles or gratifying a
taste; in the former it may be a question of giving the
only possible form of development to an intellect that
has seemed hitherto dormant. I would not, then, with
MODIFICATIONS IF NECESSARY.
377
such a one insist on the study of history which is to
her without meaning or interest when there is a promise
that her soul might be awakened by the study of plants
or crystals. But we must bear in mind that social and
moral questions are what the most unintelligent of
women will have to deal with and through which they
must affect the welfare of others, and therefore that if
possible it is upon such subjects, and not upon botany
or crystalography, that we desire to create a habit of
reflection and some capacity of forming accurate opinions.
Section 2.-Throughout the course of study of
various subjects which we have now brought to a close,
there will remain room for the exercise of the teacher's
judgment in questions of this kind. Moderate average
abilities have been alone taken into consideration in
framing the plan, great talents and very tardy or de-
fective intelligence would render it necessary either to
enlarge or curtail it. These exceptional cases cannot
be provided for in a work intended for general use.
One caution only I would give,-when the powers of
the pupil are such as to admit of more study than I
have indicated, let it be deeper, not more varied. These
are the cases in which concentration is necessary. The
love of knowledge is keen and active, but we must be-
ware lest by feeding it over too wide a range we allow
a habit of intellectual dissipation, if I may use such an
expression, and neglect the severer exercise through
which the mind matures its vigour. If, then, we have
a pupil of more than ordinary intelligence, let her read
more and think more upon those subjects which for
various reasons have been chosen for her. If the ele-
mentary works are rapidly mastered let other and
378
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
deeper treatises be read, and let us especially be careful
that her own mind works upon what she reads; that
she strives to methodize her knowledge.
All
This is truly the aim of all intellectual culture;
we begin to give instruction to minds that are yet
passive, but it is because that very instruction is, we
trust, to be the means of rousing them from the passive
to the active state. It is only when that change is
effected that the knowledge really becomes mental nur-
ture. There is in Newman's lectures on University
Education a passage on that subject that exactly ex-
presses this difference. 'It is not,' he says, 'mere
application however exemplary which introduces the
mind to truth, nor the reading many books, nor the
getting up many subjects, nor the witnessing many
experiments, nor the attending many lectures.
this is short enough; a man may have done it all,
yet be lingering in the vestibule of knowledge; he
may not realize what his mouth utters; he may not
see with his mental eye what confronts him; he may
have no grasp of things as they are, or at least he may
have no power of advancing one step forward of him-
self in consequence of what he has already acquired,
no power of discriminating between truth and false-
hood, of sifting out the grains of truth from the mass,
of arranging them according to their true value, and, if
I may use the phrase, of building up ideas.
Such a
power is the result of a scientific formation of mind; it
is an acquired faculty of judgment, of clear-sightedness,
of sagacity, of wisdom, of philosophical reach of mind,
and of intellectual self-possession and repose, qualities
that do not come of mere acquirement. The bodily eye
the organ for apprehending material objects is provided
by nature; the eye of the mind of which the object is
truth, is the work of discipline and habit.'
MINDS OF DIFFERENT CAPACITY.
379
Such then, as I said, is the object of intellectual edu-
cation; and the greater the power of the young mind
we have to form, the more anxious must we be to aim
early and steadily at attaining that object, rather than
at heaping up the materials of knowledge; lest the real
use and purpose of those powerful faculties be forgotten;
set aside in the very eagerness of the search after fresh
knowledge. With minds of a wholly different order we
may proceed differently. With them the passive state
will last longer,-we must be content to be longer occu-
pied in instilling first principles; it may be years before
anything will awaken the intellect to any further exer-
tion than that of receiving, and more or less retaining
impressions. Our long labour of years upon years may
produce no further result, may only have stored up
impressions and somewhat cleared the understanding,
leaving us to hope that the future may yet bring some
vivifying influence, when the crop that springs up will
witness to the care with which the soil was prepared
and the seed cast in.
A difference must be made between the dull, slow
understanding that learns with labour and difficulty,
and the inert mind or defective intelligence. With
the former, few subjects should be attempted, and those
few thoroughly mastered; that labour is itself the means
of rendering the faculties more supple, just as exercise
would produce suppleness and agility in the limbs. The
perceptions become quicker, the apprehension more
rapidly clear; such minds are often tenacious of what
they have learnt, and this power is increased by the
efforts so laboriously made. In modifying the general
course of study I have proposed for young persons of
this turn of mind, I should adhere to the geometry, but
omit the algebra; they would not have time for both;
380
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
and the lessons to be derived from the former are much
needed to give them some clear perceptions of the
nature and method of reasoning, which will help further
efforts. The less we can trust to liveliness of appre-
hension, the more careful must we be to give the student
the means of clearing each step as she advances. In
continuing the study of reasoning, the logic should be
carefully worked, but speculative opinions may be
passed over. The studies of language must be assiduous:
the more completely we can give the use of the instru-
ment of thought, the more we help the slow under-
standing in becoming clear to itself and able to follow
clearly the thoughts of others. But as we are supposing
slowness and difficulty of learning, not more than one
foreign language certainly should be attempted, and
even that must be according to the power of memory
and the circumstances under which it can be taught.
The reasons for studying more than one form of lan-
guage are so potent that we must not, if possible, forego
the advantage, but all consideration of the literature.
may be postponed. French may be used, for instance,
as a means of mastering English more completely by
the help of translation and comparison, while time.
cannot be spared for reading any of the great authors.
With regard to the slight course of science, it may be
curtailed according to the same principles; we may
restrict ourselves to the mere elements of mechanics
and astronomy, leaving the other subjects I have men-
tioned for future study. In short, our great object
must be to work the mind rather than to enrich it,-
while in extenuation of this severer labour we do all
we can to make reading agreeable by the help of his-
tory, poetry, biography, anything that may prevent the
MINDS OF DIFFERENT CAPACITY.
381
weariness which will perhaps attend the lessons, from
growing into disgust for books in general.
With the other class of backward minds, or rather
two classes-the feebly intelligent and the inert-a
different system should be followed. With them it is
desirable to appeal to the imagination, to stimulate
curiosity, to resort to all means that promise to excite
some degree of intellectual activity, it matters little in
what direction. I have already had occasion to speak
of this, but it was necessary to mention it again with
reference to the alterations in the course of study which
such a case might make requisite. Let us try to give a taste
for literature, to let the charm of poetry be felt, before
we attempt grammar; let us store the memory, give a
knowledge of two or three languages as the instruments
of future knowledge, but studying them conversationally
if possible, or at least through the medium of light
literature that may give a taste for reading as an occu-
pation, before the time comes when it may grow into
an earnest pursuit. In science, let first the curious or
the amusing, next the great results, be placed before the
mind; labouring less anxiously to work in the first
principles, appealing first to the imagination, while the
reasoning power is yet wrapt in its tardy infancy. A
considerable amount of information possessed by the
teacher herself, is an incalculable advantage under these
circumstances. The dormant faculties may often be
roused by oral and incidental teaching, when books are
utterly distasteful. Natural objects, effects and changes
produced by the powers of nature, simple experiments,
&c., may be used by a well-instructed person to draw
* See Chap. v. sect. 2.
382
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
attention to what otherwise would pass unobserved,-to
lead the young mind almost imperceptibly to draw in-
ferences, to perceive relations to reason, in short, and
above all, to wish to see and know more. In choosing
the subjects for actual teaching, it would be well to be
guided in some measure with reference to the power of
commanding means of ocular demonstration, in order
not to depend on books alone. For instance, to select
natural history, if placed near museums or zoological
collections; or mechanics, if opportunities of seeing
machinery can be easily found. Geography may be
made a study of great interest, and travels might take
the place of part of the historical course before recom-
mended. If we can rouse the indolent or feeble mind
to take an interest first in travellers' adventures, next
in descriptions of scenery and natural productions, then
in the account of the social condition of the inhabitants,
we have advanced some steps towards kindling a wish
to penetrate into their past history; and we have pre-
pared the way for some of the lessons that study should
teach.
Such are the alterations I would suggest under these
peculiar circumstances, but in doing so it is merely as
pointing out the principle upon which a method adapted
to average abilities may be departed from when neces-
sary. They are hints, not rules.
There are some objects which I trust, with every
variety of intelligence, may be attained by such a sys-
tem of education as I have proposed. These are—a
certain degree of enlargement of the natural powers of
the understanding shown in love of truth, in candour,
in practical judgment, in wider views of duty embracing
the exercise of mental as well as moral influence, in
clearness of ideas so that the mind shall be able to dis-
EXPENSE OF EDUCATION.
383
cern distinctly what it does from what it does not under-
stand; and lastly, some love of knowledge and appre-
ciation of the objects that affect the real interests of
mankind. These are what the least gifted by nature
may surely be endowed with by education, and these,
though in a higher degree, are all we expect the latter
to do for those to whom nature has been most lavish.
The young will be thoroughly aware that it is a labour
commenced only, a labour methodically prepared, not a
finished work, that education bequeaths to them when
their school studies are over. The miserably false
association created by the terms 'finishing schools,'
'finishing governess,' will not mislead them. If they
have one notion more clear than another in their minds,
it will be that of their own ignorance, as they catch
faint glimpses of the vast regions of knowledge that
spread out on all sides of them.
With regard to expense, I have throughout endea-
voured to regulate my plan to suit average means as
well as average abilities; and to justify what I laid
down at the outset,—that the serious cost so often com-
plained of is for the accessories not the essentials of
education. At the same time it must be confessed that
even when other expenses are lavished, there is often a
strange dislike to spending money on books. It is not
uncommon to hear it said in a school-room, 'I use what
books I can; so-and-so would be far better, but it is not
to be expected that they will be bought,' &c. Yet
in the same family one or two reviews or magazines
are taken in, shilling or half-crown novels bought at
the railway station before every journey of a few hours,
while useful works are wanted for serious instruction.
It may be said that such purchases are trifles, and so
as to price are many of the works I have recommended,
384
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
while all are easily accessible; the old can be borrowed
from any gentleman's library or found on any book-
stall, the new at every circulating library. It is un-
doubtedly better to purchase books than to borrow
them; for purely educational books as well as works of
reference it is necessary to do so, and the cost will at
most be very inferior to that which more fashionable
systems lavish upon accomplishments.* Even where
economy is strictly necessary, till there is no luxury of
show or dress that can be given up, parents must
surely be ashamed to own that they will not incur the
yearly expense of a few pounds for the essential means
of their daughters' education.
When the parents' circumstances are so narrow as
to require the time of their daughters to be given to
household matters rather than to books, it must then
rest with the mother, as I have before said, to turn that
practical education to the purposes of mental discipline
also.† Under such circumstances, whatever small por-
tions of time can be devoted to books, should be em-
ployed on solid systematic reading within a very small
* Good works of reference are extremely important. The following
will be found most useful:-Brand's Dictionary of Arts, Science, and
Literature. The new and abridged edition of the Biographie Uni-
verselle, which is hardly a third of the price of the large edition, and
Johnson's
comes down to a later period. Good maps are essential.
Physical Atlas is invaluable, placing before the eye at once, in different
plates, the results of laborious investigations, which few memories will
retain if presented in the form of ordinary reading. Bell's Chrono-
logical Tables I have spoken of before. The Penny Cyclopedia is very
useful when no larger work of that kind is at hand. Dictionaries of
the different languages taught are of course indispensable; and for
English, either a large Johnson, or one of the newer works that have
in some measure superseded his, though none, I believe, are equal to it
for the variety of the quotations, which afford so admirable a study of
the language.
† See pp. 85, 256.
A FATHER'S INFLUENCE.
385
range of subjects. We know how much has been often
achieved by self-educated men in the intervals of labo-
rious occupation; the same determination and careful
husbandry of time will produce equally good results
in the case we are now considering. It must be the
ceaseless effort of the parents to stir up that spirit; and
when they have done so, I feel convinced that no poverty
likely to occur in a class removed above the necessity
of manual labour will prevent a mother giving to her
daughters an education which, for solidity and true re-
finement, shall surpass that of the most expensive schools.
And however small the scale of attainment, love of
knowledge, at least, is no growth of a wealthy soil alone.
It can preserve an elevated mental condition amidst the
homeliest cares. It can animate the minds of those
who are tied down to manual drudgery no less than the
favoured student with all the means and appliances'
of learning around him. It can open glimpses of a
higher life to cheer the flagging spirit, and save it from
seeking its home among the things that minister to
bodily necessities.
<
Section 3.-It may have been remarked that I have
hitherto, in speaking of a parent's influence and control,
confined myself to the mother only; the father stands
more apart from the education of his children, and in
very early life his influence is far inferior to hers. Men
seldom possess that quick perception of character and
feeling, that delicate observation and ready sympathy
which are requisite to understand children, and which
afford the key to their management. Neither is it
common to find in fathers that unselfish, untiring love
which in the mother makes it impossible that any
C C
386
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
amount of care a child may require,—whether physically
or morally, should weary or disgust her. The instinc-
tive feeling for the young is mercifully given in greater
strength to the female mind, and is roused by the care
of children in almost all women, whether themselves
mothers or not. When this is strengthened by all the
moral associations connected with the mother's office,
with the hopes and fears for the future, the pride, the
joy, the new life she lives in that young existence, it is
no wonder that maternal love becomes to most women
the strongest feeling of their nature.
And this love, from which she is not diverted by the
worldly business or ambition which take a man's heart
as well as his thoughts from home, this love is the
source of her power. Women may choose to abdicate
the latter, or make themselves unfit to exercise it, but
it is an unlawful abdication. Nature gave the influence,
and Nature will exact the penalty if it be not wielded.
for good. These considerations make it essential in a
work on Education, especially on the education of girls,
who are not even partially withdrawn as boys are from
the influence of their mother, to address the latter as
the exclusive directress of all that is done. But far
from undervaluing the father's influence for good, I am
convinced that it cannot be too highly prized, especially
at the age we have been lately considering. Throughout
the period of education, indeed, if a man be not too
much engrossed in his own pursuits or in the labour
of a profession to give attention to such detail, he may
materially assist the mother's endeavours.
The influence of a man's mind in directing a girl's
later studies, and in forming her views of the world, is
inestimable. Men whose knowledge is practically tested
are forced to acquire a thorough grasp of it,-a complete-
KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD.
387
ness which women, owing partly to the absence of that
very test, rarely attain. The mental discipline of working
up to the expectations of one who views knowledge in
this light, is excellent. But it is still more in conver-
sation that I should expect a father's beneficial influence
to tell. Men and women necessarily look upon the
world in some respects from a different point of view.
Woman's is the moral and individual view; and it is
advantageous to a girl to be forced beyond that to see
the wide and bold views of men, to look into some of
the workings of society which cannot come within her
narrow ken, to get the benefit of that wide and deep
observation upon men and things which the habit of
dealing with large questions gives to a man of any
thought and knowledge.
Knowledge of the world in women, means for the
most part insight into character, into peculiarities of sets
or individuals, and into the deep mysteries of feeling
giving the key to action and motives; in men, it is rather
a knowledge of classes than of individuals; shades of
character often escape them; their observation is wider
and less delicate; they discern less of the hidden
springs of action, and yet are more suspicious from
their general knowledge of human depravity. Women
are more confident in the prevalence of goodness, and
more intolerant of individual error; men are indulgent
to the latter, and severe in their general estimate of
mankind. It is evident, from a mere glance at these
differences, how beneficial it must be to young girls to
have their views early directed in the broader channel,
and trained to that vigour and boldness which will
make them dare to look at the world as it is when
seen from a wider sphere than their own.
The very tone of a man's conversation,—his manner
C C 2
388
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
of treating a subject, the more precise, sometimes tech-
nical, language that he uses, owing to habits of business
and of dealing with those who are as well versed as
himself in the subject he is speaking of,—all these are
highly useful to a young girl who will never herself be
brought under the same necessity for precision and
accuracy. The intellectual power, the variety of sub-
jects, that instinctive superiority which belongs to a
man of any ability, captivates the young mind and
opens it to feel the charm of real companionship and
of mental sympathy with a mind of a higher order than
her own.
A father's influence is often enhanced by
the very fact of his having kept apart from the detail
of education. His daughter forms probably a some-
what exaggerated estimate of his wisdom and of the
importance of his avocations, and is deeply sensible of
the honour that is conferred upon her when her father
seeks her as a companion. That he should talk freely
to her, draw her out and wish to help her in forming
her own opinions, raises her in her own esteem, and
gives what is the only elevating form of vanity,—the
joy of feeling of some value in the eyes of one who is
reverenced as well as loved. It will be seen from the
very words I use that I am not supposing the father
to descend from his pedestal of dignity, to condescend
to converse with his daughter, to dictate his opinions
to her and make her feel that she must be terribly in
fault if their truth or wisdom is not apparent to her.
I am supposing that he habitually and freely enters
into conversation on the tone of an equal, and the less
stress he lays on his superiority the more will she feel
and remember it. I suppose that he takes an interest
in her pursuits and amusements,-in her wild, girlish
fancies and visions of delight; that he tries to draw out
IMPORTANT INFLUENCE.
389
that half-formed mind; that he leads her to express
thought and opinion freely; that he helps her to give
definiteness and vigour to the conceptions that are but
just taking shape in her imagination; that he tries to
show her the nature of any error she holds, encouraging
her to seek and examine, and giving the sanction of
his warm, loving approval to every earnest endeavour
to judge correctly or to act uprightly.
In the present day, the ignorant or the shallow-
hearted among men alone deride women's education or
overlook the importance of their duties and influence;
from such a man as I have spoken of above, his daughter
will hear neither ridicule of her sex for their tardy en-
deavours to improve their condition, nor any of the
commonplace sarcasms that commonplace men have
been content to echo from generation to generation.
She will see what a lofty standard is before him as he
cheers her on to more and more exertion; she will
know that her happiness, her dignity, her intellectual
worth, are all sacred in his eyes; she will feel that
when he remembers woman's inferiority, it is only to
think with more exquisite tenderness of all that may
best shield that inferior position from sorrow or wrong.
Such companionship may have a lasting influence
upon a girl's destiny far beyond what was contemplated
in a mere educational point of view. If it is important
to man's true happiness that he should cherish a lofty
ideal of female purity and worth, it is no less essential
to women to have a high conception of the manly
character. Not that unreasoning reverence for man
as enjoying the higher position and right of command,
that family deification of the right of the strongest,
which is only too common, but an appreciation of
what man ought to be to claim as an individual the
390
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
respect and deference which his sex, as a whole, receives
from those who, also considered as a whole, are inferior
to him. The girl who has learnt by her father's side
what it is that really entitles a man to command, who
has instinctively felt his natural superiority the greater
vigour, the greater power of will as well as of intellect,
—she who has felt the influence of that power over her
own mind, and known all the aid and support that it
gives, and who, joined to all this, has learnt the real
pleasure of mental companionship,-she will not be
easily fascinated by the homage of empty-headed cox-
combs or mere agreeable men of the world.
I do not
mean that she will be proof against some unfortunate
delusion; we know too well how fancy will dress up
its idols in the virtues they have never even sought to
assume; but she will have one invaluable shield in
that high standard of manly worth, and she will not
carelessly or readily give her affection where she cannot
give her highest esteem. She has known what the
relation between the weak and the strong ought truly
to be; and with her sense of the superiority man ought
to possess, she will shrink from that moral degradation
so many women fall into, of bowing down and giving
up their existence to a nature inferior to their own,
of accepting life-long subjection to one whom neither
nature nor education have formed for command.
I shall have occasion to return to the subject of mar-
riage in the concluding chapter. I would only say here,
that everything which tends to raise women's spiritual
standard in their views of marriage, is of incalculable
benefit as regards their own happiness and the true
interests of society. For the higher that standard, so
much is the probability increased that those indissoluble
ties will be formed only where real union of mind and
STRONG AFFECTIONS.
391
character, as well as heart, is the basis of deep and
earnest affections; affections which so based can no
more be altered or swayed by the changes and chances
of outward circumstance, than the full river can be
arrested in its flow by the leaves which the autumn
blast flings upon its waters.
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INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
CHAPTER VIII.
SOME PECULIARITIES OF WOMAN'S SOCIAL POSITION.
I CANNOT close these remarks on Education without
pausing to consider what that education is to lead
to. School-room studies are over;-if they had any
purpose at all, it must have been to prepare the
young creature for real life in the world where she
now must take her part. What, then, is that life
to be? If the eighteenth birthday and the dismissal
of the governess are to be the signals for closing
books, giving up regular study, for spending the
mornings over music or carpet-work, the rest of the
day in frivolous society or more frivolous reading,
what was the object of so much labour spent before
on things so different ?* In a word, if coming out' in
the fashionable sense is life, what is the value of all
* Among the generally accepted forms of idle pastime is that of
novel-reading, yet few are more pernicious at the age when girls eagerly
indulge in it. The excitement of feeling, when everything should tend
to keep their lives free from emotion, is but one evil. Novels give false
views of life, from the very necessity the writer is under of making a
love-story the centre of interest, thereby representing that passion
which, indeed, with few exceptions, exercises some influence over every
life, as the ruling motive and sole arbiter of human destiny. It need
hardly be pointed out how mischievous such an error may be to girls, in
their ignorance of the world. On the different influence exercised on
the imagination by novels and poetry, see Thoughts on Self-Culture,
P. 335 to 338. Second edition.
TRIALS OF AN INACTIVE LIFE.
393
that has been so painfully acquired? And if there be
no discoverable relation between a careful education
and the mode of life that succeeds it, what relation
does the latter bear to the serious duties and responsi-
bilities of marriage, which may speedily follow, or to
the lonely self-dependence of single life?
Viewed in this aspect, how disjointed is the course
of a girl's life, how evidently betraying the want of any
ruling purpose! Fashion dictating the education,—
custom governing the subsequent career!
In the early part of this work,* I have founded the
plea for a higher education for women upon the very
fact that life makes upon them no demand for intel-
lectual exertion; so that the spring of mental activity
must be altogether from within, and independent of all
worldly motive. I endeavoured thus to show that wo-
men are placed in a far more difficult position than
men, the majority of whom are saved by the necessities
of life from the perils of leisure and the consequences
of their own feeble power of self-regulation. And now
it is that these difficulties and dangers begin,—now when
the school-room course is over, and the world is offering
its untried pleasures. The test of education is here.
Accordingly, throughout the system I have endea-
voured to unfold in these pages, the one unvarying aim
has been to prepare for this time of trial; every study,
every effort to cultivate tastes and habits, has had re-
ference to the period when riper faculties might be
exercised upon a wider field. The notion that education
could have finished its work for girls, at the very age
when young men are just beginning their serious studies,
has never been contemplated for a moment. Every
* See Chaps. i. and ii. pp. 15—48.
394
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
pursuit will have been so directed as to carry the mind
forward to contemplate the fathomless resources of
knowledge. So many things begun, while nothing is
perfected beyond the foundation, point ceaselessly to
future work. Languages that have not been learned for
lack of time,—literature that has been merely glanced
at,-science of which the alphabet only has been conned,
-history whose lessons have been just shadowed forth;
-all these have looked to future completion, and tended
to associate coming years with fresh labours, and labour
with animation and enjoyment.
To create that association, to inspire the love of
knowledge for its own sake, is the crowning work of
intellectual education. Henceforth life can never be
either idle or barren. For that love growing with what
it feeds upon, and finding food everywhere, opens a source
of unalloyed pleasure which never while the mind retains
its power can satiate or fail. It is not merely the
amount of information which an educated person pos-
sesses that gives such animation to life, but the various
sources of interest that knowledge opens. Nature and
the world are veiled to the ignorant,-their souls respond
to a few loud calls alone; while to the lover of know-
ledge, voices speak from all things animate and inani-
mate,—from the heavens and the earth, and the waters
below the earth,—and there is scarcely a familiar scene
or obscure position that does not open some field of
thought or observation. He has not to seek occupation;
his mind is never unoccupied.
Minds in which a really careful education fails to
excite the taste for purely intellectual pursuits, are of
two classes: the homely, who are strangers to all the
higher forms of excitement; and those who are exclu-
sively fond of action, and possess very often a great
PRACTICAL MINDS.
395
fund of practical ability. This cast of mind among men
is very valuable. Those who possess it often stand
highest in the world's esteem; they carry into execution
what the thinkers have elaborated in their studies; they
stand foremost in an hour of peril, and win the race of
ambition. But for women this cast of mind is the one
that gives the least promise of happiness, and more
especially if they remain unmarried; since, with an
active, energetic spirit stirring within, they are shut
out by circumstances from one sphere of activity, and
by their own mental peculiarities from another. Thus
the same qualities which would have made a man a
leader in society, which even to a woman with a large
family or a position of much influence might have pro-
duced great benefits, turn too often in single life to
restless meddling, to fussy excitement about trifling
matters, to eager anxiety about many plans which
may end at last in bitter discontent. A watchful
mother will be aware of this tendency of her daughter's
mind; and it must be her care to make the most of all
the resources home life affords to cultivate that power
of active usefulness, and give it a steady, thoughtful
direction. Education may fail to excite love of know-
ledge, but never with fairly well-constituted minds will
it fail to establish the conviction that life has an earnest
purpose to each and all,—a purpose of self-improvement
and usefulness; that if to-day in a position where we
cannot apparently serve others, the time may yet come,
and we must prepare for it. These moral views bearing
directly on the intellectual condition, and investing it
with a new interest, will save the mind from that silly
contempt for intellectual pursuits which we see too
often in those who boast of being practical. They will
lead them to respect knowledge and to regret their own
396
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
want of capacity for seeking it,—a regret which may,
when the practical activity finds little vent, lead to
more earnest endeavours to enter into that wide field
of interests which study opens to all who desire to
share in it. There will, at any rate, be no entrance
for that low view of mental cultivation so unfortunately
common, which represents it as a mere matter of taste
whether a woman embroider muslin and a man keep a
pack of hounds, or whether they cultivate literary tastes
and store their minds with knowledge.
No forms of practical usefulness are to be despised
which can save a girl who has no love of study from
sinking into mere trifling the moment her school-room
studies are over, or feeling that she has nothing to do.
The management of a household, the care of children,
teaching, nursing the sick, accounts, gardening, or
farming, may excite the interest that cannot be roused
for books; and not seldom interest in some practical
matter will lead to a serious study of it, in the course
of which the mind may begin to feel the pleasure of
intellectual exertion. I should desire a girl, under
these circumstances, to undertake the responsibility,
and enter into the details of anything for which she
felt any wish or aptitude; but every such occupation
must be followed steadily and methodically. This the
mother should use all her influence to enforce.
All young girls should go through a certain course
of this practical training. They should be taught
cooking for a sick room, if no other; and all the minute
detail of domestic work and management should be
made familiar to them, which can be done by practice.
alone. There would be less blundering among young
housekeepers, and less discontent among their husbands,
if this apprenticeship were carried on under a mother's
KNOWLEDGE OF BUSINESS.
397
i
eye.
Those who have no taste for mental occupation
might likewise be initiated into other kinds of busi-
ness as occasion offers. It often happens that a man's
occupations, whether literary or scientific, or even
professional, makes him require help, which he may
reasonably hope to find in his daughters, and which, if
not claimed as a right, but asked for and accepted
kindly, will be given in glad earnest and be a benefit
to both parties. Work done as a willing service which
wins thanks and gives pleasure, has a very different
effect upon the mind from work done to avoid incur-
ring displeasure; just as every generous mind knows
the delight of giving, while pleasure in paying a tax
no Quixotism of liberality has yet pretended to feel. It
would often be most valuable to women to be taught
the forms and method of business; for many who have
no property of their own requiring this kind of know-
ledge, are deeply concerned in the management of
charities and schools,-sometimes on a large scale,-in-
volving considerable expenditure, and requiring business
correspondence and much arrangement with others.
Knowledge and habits of business, besides giving the
sense of increased usefulness, would certainly tend to
raise the estimation in which women are held as capable
of system and management beyond the details of a
household, and would entitle the individual possessing
them to that degree of consideration that society
seldom refuses to successful labour.
With regard to the other class of minds I mentioned
above, in whom it seems impossible to create any taste
for intellectual pursuits, it is some consolation to know
they are of that order to which a confined position is
essentially congenial, and therefore that they will
neither feel the sufferings nor the temptations against
398
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
which it is needful to protect higher natures. Routine
is not wearisome to them; small cares and amusements
absorb them; their sensibilities, less highly wrought,
will not prey upon themselves; thought will not wear,
nor doubt torture them; they have not the same ca-
pacity for either happiness or misery. Women who
belong to this class are generally cheerful and contented
in single life, unless defects of temper interfere, or some
peculiar cause of bitterness has soured their feelings;
and if they marry, they remain happily ignorant that
they are without influence, and incapable of fulfilling
the sacred trust of educating their children.
This is a very common tone of feeling and character,
from which society suffers, while the individual escapes
some evils which press heavily on minds of a higher
cast. But it must be remembered that the more a
higher education spreads, the more it tends to cultivate
the understandings of women, to refine their imagina-
tion, to elevate and widen the circle of their sympathies,
the more will it tend to lessen the number of those who
just vegetate on the earth,—who are content with any-
thing which does not bring actual pain or privation,
and who aspire to nothing beyond household and do-
mestic cares. We cannot aim at a higher condition,
without taking its penalties with its advantages.
Supposing a girl to marry young, a little judicious
management obviates all difficulties during the few
years that intervene between her introduction into
society and her entrance upon a career of definite and
important duties. But it is when a woman remains
single, either altogether or till late in life, that her
position becomes exposed to those peculiar trials which
It is
education should have prepared her to meet.
LOW VIEWS OF LIFE.
399
then that women feel the narrow bounds of their sphere
of activity, it is then that, forgetting the true value of
leisure, and all that its possessors owe to society, they
are tempted to rate the social value of the influence of
refined minds, of noble hearts, of cultivated tastes and
pursuits, below that of money-making professions, and
utter too often the melancholy cry that their lives are
useless to others, their knowledge and their faculties
valueless to themselves, because the world offers them
no task-work to perform. It is then that they need
that spirit loftier than ambition, which will keep the
mind active and aspiring without the spur of worldly
motive; and that true appreciation of life which main-
tains, against all false associations, the conviction how
superior what we are is to what we do.
Still, it must be remembered that what is thus re-
quired of women is no easy attainment. The instincts
of activity and the yearnings of the social spirit are so
strong, that when education has done its best, there
will be many causes of depression in the social position
of single women. Success and hope are two indis-
pensable elements in human happiness; they are absent
from the lives of those who have no positive occupations
in the present, and no definite object to look forward
to as the reward of exertion. Before we condemn
women who sink in listless depression under the burden
of years so spent, let us try to fancy for a moment
what would have been the mental condition of the
great body of men who are now acquitting themselves
honourably in different active careers, if they had been
confined within these narrow and sterile bounds,—let us
consider what is the condition of the generality of
those who are free from professions, and see how few of
400
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
F
them are able to make a noble use of their freedom.
We may thus form a juster notion of trials that have
been too lightly regarded, or the weight of which has
been unjustly attributed to other causes.
No doubt, men also must often mourn over the flight
of youth, with its bright dreams and glorious visions;
but in the midst of active employments, the long years
that follow bring much to compensate for the fading
of early hopes. A man's social position is more or less
improved; he has won honour, or money, or profes-
sional distinction; his character and abilities have been
made known,-they have given him weight, and he
holds a place in public esteem which never can belong
to the young.
Even to the many who are baffled in
their long struggle, hope at least is not short-lived as it
is to a woman. It cheers his path twenty, even thirty
years after its rainbow tints have faded from hers, un-
less she lives again in a husband's ambition or the
future of her children. And during those years he is
looking forward to possible good to be attained by his
own exertions; she with folded arms is contemplating
inevitable decline.
I need hardly say that I do not mean, in pointing
this contrast, to put out of sight all the bitter suffer-
ings that a life of toil and ambition is subject to; my
only object is to draw more earnest attention to the
absence of active objects and interests as a source of
real depression, which the spur of mental activity,-a
high and earnest love of knowledge, is alone effectual
to counteract.
It is true that some women do not apparently feel
these evils, they are content within their circle of
trivial interests and occupation, but this is owing to
the homeliness of their own character, as I said before;
DUTIES THROWN ON SINGLE WOMEN.
401
they are in a congenial position, and therefore have
nothing to complain of. It often happens also that
the unmarried find much to do in their natural woman's
vocation. Age and sickness, widowed homes and
orphan childhood, make too many claims on those who
are not wrapped up in ties of their own, to let single
women feel that they are excluded from those charities
of life which appeal most strongly to a woman's heart.
Beyond these, the influence of mind and character tells
in its appropriate female form through the various
channels of intercourse, from the cottage of the poor
to the confidential intercourse with the many who are
prone to confide their difficulties, their hopes, and their
sorrows to those who are supposed to have few interests
of their own to divert their sympathy from others; and
all these things prevent the causes of depression men-
tioned above being severely felt. But, after all, let us
remember that when single women thus find occupation
thrown upon them, it comes through the gates of sor-
row or of death;—it is the burden of another that has
fallen to the ground, and must be raised and carried;
and perhaps we may own that we can hardly paint a
condition in more dreary colours than to say that such
a burden becomes a relief.
Yet the difficulties of this condition must be met.
Without considering whether the time may come when
different social arrangements may produce a change, cer-
tain it is that, at present, a large number of women in the
classes we are speaking of remain single, and a great
proportion of the rest marry late, and therefore for some
years are exposed to these trials. In other countries,
mariages de convenance diminish the number, and the
sufferings of the remainder are hidden in nunneries, under
D D
402
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
(
whose funereal shelter ennui may silently consume
them.'* We shall hardly wish to resort to either expe-
dient. More than enough is the ridicule and disgrace
which matrimonial manoeuvring has brought upon oursex,
and the grief which the attempted revival of conventual
establishments has caused to many families. What,
then, remains to be done? What preservative against
these evils are girls likely to find in the resources of a
common education, or in the course of reckless frivolity
and idleness which hails the close of their school-room
studies?
I would not have it supposed for an instant that I
write in a spirit of ascetic opposition to pleasure and
amusement. Far from it. I do not, as I have said
before,† think the capacity of youth for enjoyment is
even sufficiently considered. Let us cherish every joyous
impulse, every innocent manifestation of the light-
hearted, careless spirit, which with our tenderest foster-
ing will droop too soon in a world like this; and there-
fore would I not let those young lives be so barren of
joy that they should have leisure to be engrossed for
weeks and months in the fripperies of a milliner, in the
busy idleness of shopping, in the listless vanities of
crowded rooms. These will never satisfy the minds
that have felt the animation of higher enjoyments.
Pleasure, be it remembered, always borrows intensity
from the mind that feels it; and truly youth, when all
its rich gifts are drawn out, is far different, considered
under the aspect of pleasure alone, from that half-
developed existence which the sound of a fiddle gal-
vanizes into momentary animation.
*Ces vastes abris mortuaires où l'ennui les tuera sans bruit.'-
Michelet: Hist. de France, vol. xi.
See Chap. vii. sect. 2.
LIVING FOR PLEASURE.
403
It is not, then, against pleasure that I write, but
against living for pleasure ;-against that systematic
frivolity, that laborious idleness, that solemn consecra-
tion of existence to amusement, which girls do not seek,
but which is thrust upon them; which is as much a
part of the business of life as the confirmation which
went before, and the wedding which it is hoped will
follow after. I would not urge mothers to refuse to
introduce their daughters in London society, but I
would desire to see them so educated that a regular
London season would be an impossibility,—a weary viola-
tion of their own wishes and tastes. Bolingbroke says
of the frivolous that they are 'forced to trifle away their
age, because they have trifled away their youth;' and
we may truly say of the nightly frequenters of balls and
assemblies, that they are forced to waste their days be-
cause the previous nights have been wasted. Neither
study nor social duties can without risk to health be
attended to in the morning, if the sun has risen upon
the night's amusement. As an occasional thing, nothing
of that sort can injure a young and strong person; but
if persevered in, mind and body are both too much
jaded even to give to rational employment the three or
four hours in the morning which the claims of society
have not yet interfered with.* The afternoon brings
its necessary trifling, the shopping, the round of visits,
the gossip, the arrangements for future pleasure,—varied
occasionally by an equestrian assembly in Rotten Row,
* Accordingly we find that riding in the forenoon is becoming more
and more the custom, thereby cutting off one more chance of quiet oc-
cupation. It is good for health is the plea, and doubtless it is so; but
why first endanger health by nightly folly, in order to sacrifice the next
morning to retrieving the mischief?
DD 2
404
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
morning concerts, breakfasts, afternoon tea-parties, polka
parties or flower-shows, one or other of which will be
found effectual to prevent the intrusion of a leisure hour
till the time for the dinner toilette arrives, and is fol-
lowed by the usual course of evening gaieties.
When it is remembered that such is the routine of
London life for three months, that foreign capitals or
watering-places often continue the same round for some
weeks longer, while scattered over the remaining months
of the year there are country balls, races, and race balls,
archery meetings, and gatherings in country houses,
during which the joint endeavours of fifteen or twenty
people are spent in getting rid of time, it is only won-
derful that so much that is good and estimable should
have survived in that portion of society where this
exuberance of folly is found. Strong affections, and the
high view of a wife's duties, which no imitation of
foreign fashions has yet been able to alter, are, I be-
lieve, what save us in great measure from the natural
consequences of such reckless neglect of all that is ear-
nest and elevating in human life.
Nor let us suppose that the fashionable have a
monopoly of frivolity. It is true that wealth and
station alone can enable women to get rid of their better
selves in so thorough and systematic a manner as that
above described; but without speaking of the heart-
burnings of those who look on and are not allowed to
join in the race,—of 'the cark and care' with which
numbers, who think they have a claim to mix in the
fashionable throng that unjustly excludes them, embitter
their lives, toiling with a perseverance such as few great
causes have witnessed,-without, I say, speaking of
these things, we may see at a glance that frivolity can
wear more than one garb, and that the cap and bells
WIDE SPREAD OF FRIVOLITY.
405
can be made of foil as well as gold. Thus, while envy-
ing those whom wealth allows to sink unchecked below
the level of rational humanity, parents are still saved
from the necessity of condemning their daughters to
any useful or elevating mode of spending their time.
If London is too expensive, a hunting neighbourhood
offers some resource ;-if they cannot afford to travel,
there are watering-places at home. If girls cannot
spend their mornings in shopping, they can spend them
in the careful revision of such finery as they already
possess, to see what amount of time and trouble will
suffice to make them appear, at least, to dress beyond
their means.
If they cannot attend the great marts of
gossip, they can gossip over the neighbourhood and the
village; if forced to stay at home, still useful occupa-
tions may be avoided; embroidery, with its sham title
of work, will afford ladylike means of getting rid of the
obnoxious hours, and night will come, if not to summon
them to haunts of amusement, at least to mark that
they have succeeded in drawing a day nearer to the
grave, without running the risk of leaving one mark of
their flitting through life.
That a welcome should be given to any form of
pleasure or novelty, is most natural, when the mind is
unoccupied and time hangs heavy as a curse upon the
idle hands. Many girls, fit for better things, are reck-
less in the search of amusement for want of something
else to do. Their lives are so devoid of real interest
and animating pursuit, that in their utter weariness
the hard toil even of other classes often seems envi-
able.* In many a noble dwelling the daughters of the
*Far below the class here spoken of, we find the same thing.
Farmers' and tradesmen's daughters are as idle, and therefore suffer
406
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
house are feeling that all the luxury to which habit
has made them insensible would be well bartered for
anything that promised some change or excitement.
Let those reproach them for being excited about a ball
or an archery-meeting who feel that they could them-
selves live in cheerful content with nothing to look
forward to, and nothing to do. Truly there is less
promise in the mind that sinks down satisfied with
such an existence, than in the restless and discon-
tented.
What but the vacuity of life I have been complain-
ing of makes so many young women fall a prey to
superstitious devotion? Marriage is their only hope
of change, and some years pass away without any pro-
spect of marriage that suits their wishes or their am-
bition; the world affords them no mental stimulus or
active occupation, and they sink back disappointed and
sick at heart, often without knowing why. Then the
Church steps in and claims them. If they happen to
'sit under' an evangelical preacher, he sends them to
distribute tracts and teach Sunday-schools; if they live
within the rule of a High-Churchman, the ecclesiastical
autocrat relieves them of the burden of their time,
together with that of their conscience. He rules their
lives for them; he portions their days and hours to
certain exercises and forms of devotion; he sanctifies
a frivolous occupation by allowing it to be devoted to
the Church, and forthwith the embroidering of altar-
cloths takes a place among the serious duties of life.
He forbids thought, and exacts obedience; there is no
still more from ennui than the daughter of the peer, since they have
not her resources of society. If the hands are not constrained to work,
earnest head-work alone can save from living for pleasure.
A REFUGE IN SUPERSTITION.
407
room for doubt or hesitation about charities, or duties,
or pursuits,—he has regulated them all, and the stern-
ness of the interference is softened by the dignity of
the office, which makes the man almost sacred. The
vague suffering of the former condition cannot be more
emphatically set forth than by the fact that this ab-
negation of all self-guidance is a welcome change.
Doubtless great worth and ability in many men belong-
ing to the class I am here speaking of have aided their
power, but its great secret lies in the predisposing
influences of leisure and idleness over minds longing
for occupation and excitement, without knowledge or
mental power for self-regulation. The Church provides
the occupation and dispenses with the labour of self-
regulation, the weak, the enthusiastic, and the timid.
naturally fall under its dominion.
When we see the establishment of nunneries under
a thin Protestant disguise, daughters enticed away from
home-duties and affections,-women of property per-
suaded to renounce all the responsibilities of property,
and to devote it blindly to objects over which they are
to have no control,-young minds broken down by
ecclesiastical despotism, till they renounce Protestant
freedom of conscience as a burden too heavy to bear,
and feel happy only when their shackles are riveted by
that power which enjoys at least the prescription of
centuries for destroying human liberty; when, I repeat,
we see these things going on around us, are they not
evident signs among many others how much is at fault
in the mode of existence which leaves some of life's
dearest possessions at the mercy of any strong impulse
from without?
But not only do education and society do nothing
to prepare young women for a position which requires
40S
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
all the resources of well-disciplined minds, but parents
themselves do much to aggravate the evil by the need-
less dependence in which they keep their unmarried
daughters. There can be no doubt that, in the great
majority of cases, the utmost kindness is intended;
there is only an utter want of perception that the life
which was both fitting and pleasant at eighteen, is dis-
tasteful ten years later, and to many almost unendurable
ten years after that. Perhaps they are not expected to
own to so many years; the farce of youth is enjoined
.upon some, and played, alas! by many more; but cha-
racters, and tastes, and spirits cannot be made to fall
into the part,—a dreary discontent settles upon the un-
occupied mind, and society, to which they are no longer
an ornament, laughs at what is supposed to be mere
disappointment at not having married. It does not
care to trace there the effects of a want of expansion
in all that gives healthy energy to life, of the vain
attempts of the full-grown creature to take exercise in
a go-cart, or to find rest in the infant's crib !
I know all that can be said about care and protec-
tion, &c., and much of it is true, up to a certain age;
but why set so high a price upon protection at an age
when it is no longer wanted? shackling a woman's
movements in the name of a guardian care which she
is more fit to exercise over those who protect her, than
to be still the object of herself?
Domestic arrange-
ments and all the detail of life, must necessarily be
settled according to the parents' habits and wishes, and
none could certainly desire to see that tender care,
which sons engaged in professions cannot give, withheld
by daughters; but we might wish to see this lavish,
unselfish devotion allowed more often to assume the
form of a free-will offering.
•
DEPENDENCE OF SINGLE WOMEN.
409
It is common to see young women, and women no
longer young, kept dependent in every movement, with
a moderate allowance for dress, from which not unfre-
quently they hardly dare to economize for any other ob-
ject. They are without the power of making a journey,-
of asking a friend to stay with them,-of making acquain-
tance, of engaging in any undertaking, unless it is to
cost nothing beyond their own trouble, and to square
exactly with the most trifling arrangements of the rest
of the family,—without even a quiet room of their own
in which they may if they choose enjoy solitude and
their own pursuits.* If seclusion from society suit
the taste of the elders, the younger must share it; if,
on the contrary, the taste for gay society survives, or if
it is supposed that in that society is still to be found
the best chance of accomplishing that one great object,
an eligible match,—then, no matter what the daughter's
own tastes may be, she must run the giddy round of
pleasures that have ceased to please. In such cases
many a one spends yearly in a court dress, sums which
would have purchased the indulgence of tastes she has
no means of gratifying. If the parents' pursuits
happen to be different, then she may indeed enjoy
access to better things,-books, paintings, lectures, all
* One of the most common forms of petty domestic oppression is that
of insisting that a whole family, whose tastes and occupations are dif-
ferent, shall spend the day in the same room, generally under pretence
of the extravagance of burning many fires! In many wealthy houses,
the daughters could no more venture to order a fire in their own apart-
ment, to avoid the talk and interruptions of the drawing-room, than
they could order from the bookseller a work from want of which some
favourite study is arrested. Truly, economy of books and of peace to
read them, go fitly together with the lavish expenditure on dress which
is characteristic of the present day!
410
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
means of acquiring knowledge may be at her disposal;
but I am contending for the one right of disposing of
her own time according to her own tastes.
In many
cases, perhaps in most, parents could not afford to give
their daughters more money than they actually give or
at least spend upon them, according to their own views
of what is suited to make them happy; but the same
money spent really as we please ourselves, gives a very
different amount of enjoyment. Fortunately, benevo-
lent schemes have commended themselves under the
name of piety, and thus have been allowed to pass in
many instances when other pursuits equally innocent
would not have been permitted to occupy time and
attention; and it would be curious to inquire from how
many nervous complaints, from how much morbid
feeling and mental suffering bordering more nearly on
derangement than we like to allow, young women
have been rescued by ragged-schools, district visiting,
Dorcas societies and the like? But why, we may well
ask, should the field of activity be limited to things of
this nature? why must the mind be forced in very
weariness to seek relief in occupations for which it
often has no natural bent?
Looking calmly at that system which has added so
needless a weight to the inevitable evils of the position
of unmarried women, combined with the custom of
making such miserable provision for daughters that
they can scarcely, when left to their own resources,
maintain themselves in respectable independence in the
station to which they belong, how can we avoid the
suspicion that, so far as it has any purpose at all, that
purpose is to make them think that almost any husband
who offers them a home of their own is preferable to
remaining unmarried? Mothers have indeed made the
MARRIAGE AN ESCAPE FROM ENNUI.
411
sad confession that they feared the influence of a happy
home, of strong sisterly affection, even of the love
given to themselves and so dear to them, in lessening
the willingness to marry; in other words, lessening the
artificial inducements to embrace without affection a
course of duties which, had affection spoken, would
have had more than attraction enough. We may hope
that such instances are rare; but whether purposely
designed or not, how many uncongenial marriages are
owing to the mode of life we have been considering?
The excitement of a flirtation is a perfect Godsend
in that inactive colourless existence. Where there is
no active life of thought, fancy and feeling are easily
stirred, and mere novelty has an unspeakable charm.
When the probable result of this exciting pleasure is
forced upon a girl's mind, when she sees it will soon
rest with herself to fix her destiny for ever, or to fall
back into the dreary nothingness that went before, an
interval of painful hesitation ensues. In presence of
such a reality she tries to reflect. She is quite aware
that she knows nothing of the man's real character to
make her trust to him for happiness, nothing of what
he is, even as a companion, apart from the pleasant
nonsense of flirtation, still less what he may be as a
master, when the task of seeking to please has changed
hands; but she believes in his love, and she has read
in many a novel of woman's power to make what she
pleases of the man who loves her. Does she love him?
Perhaps she is really incapable of answering that ques-
tion; at least she loves nothing better. The new
language she has heard from him has stirred some
feeling she knew not before, and the weary monotony
of life is instinct with a new animation that looks like
happiness. If she cannot even so far deceive herself,
412
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
she tries to view the subject rationally, according to the
world's notion of rational marriages. 'Love is not the
first consideration in life,—she ought to marry, her
parents expect her to do so,—an honourable useful life
is thereby opened to her,—a woman cannot choose, she
may never have an opportunity of making a marriage
that would offer more chance of happiness,-if she
refuses, there is only the same routine, so dreary before,
more dreary now, to fall back upon,' &c., &c.; and so she
decides, and while the turmoil lasts, which seems to
surround a wedding on purpose to drown thought, she
may not again pause to ask whether she is not paying
too high a price for escape from a life which, if devoid
of interest and activity, was free from the perils she may
be blindly encountering now.
It does not suit either the pride of women or the
vanity of men to own how often the former marry with
no stronger feeling than this, but let any who have had
frequent opportunities of looking behind the scenes
deny it if they can. And how should it be otherwise,
when not only by the unavoidable conditions of life
marriage is a girl's one hope of improving her position,
of taking an honoured place in society, and having a
course of active duties and interests before her; but
when every artificial aid is given to enhance the desi-
rableness of that position, and to depress the one in
which she stands already? Truly it may create astonish-
ment that so many marriages are even as happy as they
are. The ideal of happiness, indeed, is not high, but
there is more cheerfulness and content than might
reasonably have been expected. Fortunately, the world
occupies a man, and children engross a woman's mind,
and thus very often neither has leisure to accuse the
SINGLE WOMEN WITH PROPERTY.
413
other of the disappointment of better hopes or higher
views of life.
If we require further proof that fear of poverty, un-
due constraint, and the want of definite occupation and
station in society, are what drive many women to look
to marriage as their only resource, let us view the case
of those who have independent fortunes in their own
hands, and see how well contented they generally are
with their position. No false inducements urge them
to marry, and unless moved by real affection they remain
single. In far less favourable circumstances the same
thing may be seen. Some, on whom has devolved the
charge of a brother's or sister's children, daughters
placed by their mother's death at the head of their
father's house, these show no dissatisfaction with their
condition as single women, and adhere to it in cheerful
activity. Yet they have, perhaps, a course of arduous
duties which at first sight seem to stand in hard contrast
to the lot of girls who are living in leisure and freedom
from care under their parents' roof; the difference is in
the definite position with its duties and responsibilities,
and the consideration that attaches to it.
To some
natures, and perhaps the highest and most gifted with all
the rich capacities of life, it is better to have thought,
felt, and acted, aye, even to have struggled and suffered,
than to feel the deadness of an existence sheltered from
woe and care, but sheltered also from activity and joy.
But, however parents may remove all needless
restraint, the position of single women generally must
remain a confined and inactive one; the remedy must
come from within. Mental resources, and energy to use
them without external stimulus, are the surest safeguard
against the depressing influence of circumstances we
414
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
cannot control. And next in importance to this would
be the advantage gained if girls were educated to con-
template single life as the probable, marriage only as
the possible, contingency. Under ordinary circum-
stances, every woman has certainly the power to marry
at one time or another if she chooses; but since she
has and can have none but a negative choice, it is far
from likely, if feelings, character, and tastes are to be
considered, as well as mere worldly considerations, that
she will have it in her power to make a really suitable
marriage. It would, then, be far better if girls were
brought up to look at this side of the question, and to
feel that their lives must really be what they can make
them themselves; useful or frivolous, cheerful or em-
bittered with discontent, according as they have strength
of mind to contend against narrowing influences, and
to keep a high and independent bearing. There is little
fear that the young creature, full of warm affections,
should form too bright an anticipation of a lonely life;
but it is well that she should feel that no evils that life
can bring can equal the humiliating misery of a wife's
dependence without perfect esteem; or even,-with
some natures at least, the cares and sufferings of
married life, without that earnest love in whose fulness
is abnegation of self.
If mothers talk lightly of marriage before their
daughters, if it be represented as an inevitable necessity
in which, if one form of suffering be avoided another
must be endured, as a lottery in which no one can
know what will fall to their lot,-as made in Heaven,
by which phrase all earthly prudence is supposed to be
rendered needless,-if these are the sentiments idly
uttered, while novels fill up the picture, no wonder that
the young are either worldly or rash. The higher the
IDEAL OF MARRIED HAPPINESS.
415
ideal of married life in a woman's mind, the safer she
is from being swayed by any of the social considerations
which give an undue importance to marriage, and
tempt so many to barter their lives for station and
independence.
A high ideal of married happiness involves a high
standard of manly character. The low opinion of men
so commonly expressed by women, combined with their
servile submission to the faults they ridicule and con-
demn, are calculated to produce the worst moral effect
on any young mind. If it were true and unavoidable
that men must be ill-tempered, despotic, selfish, unjust
to women's claims, that their wives must be content
if no positive vice or unkindness makes their home
wretched, then indeed there is little use in anything
we can say or do; there is merely the alternative of
the evils of loneliness and the sufferings of marriage.
But since such a view is as false as it is mischievous,
it is sad indeed that the errors of individuals, made
worse by the insane flattery of women's submission,
should be covered over with this assumed cloak of uni-
versal failing. Doubtless there are faults which edu-
cation and position make very common, and which must
therefore to some extent be made allowance for. For
instance, from childhood a woman is trained to care for
others, a man to struggle for himself and by himself;
to her, then, there is self and home,-to him, self and the
world. Thus while a selfish, like a hard woman, is one
who sins against nature and her own position; some
selfishness in a man only shows that he has been more
affected than he ought to have been by the circum-
stances and temptations of his position. And so with.
a certain degree of sternness or despotism of temper.
We cannot forget the rude schooling of men, the hard
416
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
trials, the weary toil, the competition awakening fierce
passions in some, gloomy despondency in others, the
mortifications and disappointments which lay low the
hopes of years of honest ambition, the disgust at the
world too apt to become hardness in the heart that
has been homeless for years;—all these we, by our quiet
fireside, with our gentle nurture and our home sym-
pathies around us, must bear in mind when we estimate
the characters of men, and remember that in the order
of Providence the differences are intended to harmonize,
and that while every woman who respects herself will
shrink from the degradation of bowing down before
faults that lower her esteem, because marriage offers
her a better worldly position, yet that we owe no scanty
measure of gentle forbearance, and sympathy, and high-
souled cheering to those whose labour and power shelter
us from the rude contests of life; and the tribute of
earnest reverence to the noble qualities that come out un-
scathed from an ordeal we ourselves have never known.
Some of my readers may think such remarks wander
far from the purpose of a work on Education, but I would
remind them that right views on these subjects are part
of the education for life, which, if a mother does not
give to her daughter, she will get in most questionable
forms from the experience of her own narrow circle of
observation. And should this girl, in her complete
ignorance of the realities of life and of the characters.
of men, marry early, she may be blind to the conse-
quences of what is before her very eyes, neglect oppor-
tunities of good, aggravate evils, and seal her misery
day by day through the course she takes when first her
ignorant delusions begin to melt away. By senseless.
submission to what no human being should bear from
another, or by no less senseless severity towards faults
EMPLOYMENTS FOR WOMEN.
417
which her narrow code of morals exaggerates into vices,
she may be hourly undermining every chance of future
happiness.
There is one other subject of growing importance in
the present day on which I think a careful mother
would wish to influence her daughters' opinions; this is
the subject of employments for women. It is a large
and in many respects a painful one, and which could
not be discussed here; I would only offer a few remarks
on some views which appear to me erroneous, and
deeply affecting the condition and the happiness of
women.
After what I have said of the real difficulties that
belong to the position of unmarried women, it seems
almost needless to state how gladly I should welcome
anything that opened a career of honourable activity
to those who from circumstances must desire to better
their condition, or who are mentally unfit to find cheer-
ful enjoyment in intellectual pursuits. But I own
that at present the difficulties appear to be too great to
be removed. Some fresh openings may perhaps be
found for those who work for subsistence, especially for
those who suffer under that dire form of calamity, gen-
teel poverty; we can at any rate have no doubt that
whatever overthrows an obstacle which mere custom or
conventional notion had placed in their way, and leaves
them free to exert their industry wherever they can find
room for it, is an immense benefit. But for women
who are above this necessity to find any career of acti-
vity analogous to men's professions, seems to me utterly
chimerical, and of very questionable advantage could it
be found. What society wants from women is not
labour, but refinement, elevation of mind, knowledge,
making its power felt through moral influence and
E E
418
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
sound opinions. It wants civilizers of men, and educa-
tors of the young. And society will suffer in proportion
as women are either driven by necessity or tempted by
seeming advantages to leave this their natural vocation,
and to join the noisy throng in the busy markets of the
world. It is true that the unmarried are to some
extent thrust by circumstances out of their natural
vocation; they cannot fulfil it as they should, and much
of their power to do good remains undeveloped; but
this is only one of many social evils to which as indi-
viduals we can but submit.
As society is constituted, I might perhaps say, as
human nature is constituted, I see no relief from
without to a condition which in many or even in the
majority of cases is hard to bear; therefore it is that I
think it wiser to bid women look for resources within,
and learn to infuse the excitement and vigour of intel-
lectual activity into their inactive lives, than to look
beyond to one small opening or another, which is but
like pulling out here and there a brick from the mas-
sive wall that hems them in. The favourite scheme of
the present day which has been recommended by so
much high-minded benevolence, namely, the unpaid
labour to be given by educated women in hospitals and
other institutions, appears to me as little productive of
good as any other which the pressing feeling of the
evil of too much leisure has suggested. That gifted
woman who, in a moment of national depression and
sorrow, stepped forward to set the example of noble
self-devotion to a lofty purpose, must stand as an ex-
ception when we speak of those who, with the best and
purest motives, wish to follow in her steps. She pos-
sesses all that is required in a leader,—in one who is to
organize a system and enforce its execution; and I have
ATTENDANCE ON THE SICK.
419
no doubt that as superintendents the services of gentle-
women may often be most valuable; but I cannot
think that in ordinary occasions it is desirable that
women of education and refined habits should devote
themselves to menial offices, however ennobled by
charity.
It is not any degradation in the office of personal
attendance that I would have them shrink from, where
such attendance is called for in private life, in nursing
the sick of any condition, who in one way or another
are thrown upon their care I would have them turn
from no office that can give relief,-from no service
which is required. We all know that in the illness of
those who are dear to us, such service is a privilege
we are jealous of relinquishing; nothing can weary or
disgust, for
True affection scorneth nicer hands.
But when there is not this call of either feeling or
duty, I cannot persuade myself that manual labour is
the right field of occupation for an educated class.
There is work enough for brain and hearts to do with-
out working the hands that are not required to earn
bread, and thus entering into cruel competition with
those who do labour for subsistence. It is an un-
gracious task to search for mixed motives where the
course is apparently noble and disinterested; but I
must confess that I believe the weariness of a vacant,
listless life, impels more young women to wish to
follow the example of Miss Nightingale than any con-
sideration of the superior value of unpaid labour, or
any consciousness of possessing like her that decided
vocation and power which marked her out from early
youth as fitted for a wider sphere of action and influ-
420
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
ence than home life can afford. Doubtless others will
rise up, and they also will find a work to accomplish,
and in every such case we must wish them God-speed
in the noble career they have strength and moral
courage to open for themselves; but setting aside
these exceptional cases, I repeat that there is yet much
to do in developing the resources of ordinary home and
social intercourse, and that I would earnestly desire to
see these tried to the utmost before young women of
refined and cultivated habits are persuaded that their
own happiness and the good of society are best con-
sulted by undertaking servile duties, while numbers to
whom manual labour is their only resource are starving
around them for want of employment.
With regard to other professional occupations for
women who are able to live without them, the subject
is full of practical difficulties which would make the
hope of such occupation almost nugatory, even were all
conventional obstacles and all doubts of women's capa-
bilities removed. What parents, for instance, who can
support their daughters in comfort and refinement at
home, would willingly see their youth exposed unpro-
tected to the chances of any public career?
And as
regards them, we may apply the word public to what-
ever takes them among chance companions, and brings
them into the rough contact of business. It is said that
such is not the time when the occupation is required,
that it is not desired to see young girls engaging in that
mode of life; then we must suppose a certain number
of years to pass, and that at thirty, perhaps, young
women are to begin their professional career; in other
words, to give to men the advantage of ten or twelve
years' experience in advance of them, added to all
the other advantages they already possess. What
COMPETITION WITH MEN.
421
chance would they have in such competition? and yet
this is what they must encounter, since in the present
crowded state of every profession and form of business,
men themselves find great difficulty in obtaining em-
ployment, and the additional labour that would thus be
thrown into the market would only succeed in reducing
the remuneration for head-work, already so ill paid.
But the tone so often adopted in the advocacy of
woman's claims has been far more injurious than any
such plans can be in themselves. The boast of equal
capacity supposed to be jealously kept in the back-
ground by unequal privileges would have been an ill-
judged one to bring forward at any time, but is most
ill-judged because most ungracious now, when old pre-
judices have been abandoned and the claims of women
in so many ways are advocated by the ablest men in
an unselfish, generous spirit.
And where are the proofs of this boasted equality?
No obstacles have sufficed to prevent men rising by
their own untiring energy and gifts of intellect from
obscurity and want, to fame and power; but where are
the works of genius that should be the title-deeds of
woman's claims? Alas! why expose ourselves to hear
this question asked in pride and derision? The dream
of equality was, I believe, born of wild political theory,
which would have founded government on a basis as un-
sound as that on which some women now seek to found
social reform. It is said that privileges and unjust laws
alone create inequality; but until the weak are equal
to the strong, till the soft and feeble are equal to the
steadfast and energetic, and fools and ignorant men to
the learned and the wise, how will that equality of rights
be maintained for a month, yea, even for a week,
among any score of human beings? Truly there seem
422
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
to be few facts written in more indisputable characters
on the face of the universe, in all its aspects, moral,
physical, and intellectual, than inequality. As regards
the competition between men and women in professions,
one form of natural difference which none can deny,
that of physical strength, would almost suffice to decide
the question. Supposing women on the average to
have equal ability with the average of men, how many
are physically capable of enduring the close appli-
cation, the severe mental toil, which men undergo?
And if one person is strong enough to bear continued
exertion for ten hours, while another endowed with
equal mental power is tried to the utmost by eight
hours, can they contend in any form of labour with
equal chances of success? Evidently not.
But supposing the contest to be to a certain extent
successfully carried on, suppose that many able, ener-
getic women are able to make their way among a throng
of competitors, many of whom are, undoubtedly, their
inferiors, it will be well to consider at what cost the
triumph is achieved. What will be the moral effect on
society, what the influence on woman's happiness, when
men have ceased to be protectors to become rivals,
when the appeal to their generosity, to the loftier quali-
ties of their nature is dropped, leaving only the eager-
ness and irritation of contest, coupled with probable
contempt for oft-defeated competitors? What hold
will then be left to women save through those feelings
which must always give them power for a time, but on
which the pure and high-minded will never base their
influence?
If we would try to read Nature instead of indulging
in proud dreams or ambitious theories, we might dis-
cern in the best feelings of men and women towards
CHARACTER OF WOMAN'S LOVE.
423
each other the relation in which they were destined to
stand, and see how they harmonize with the difference
of both mental and physical power between them. Is
not man's affection in its noblest form, blended with
the feeling of protection and sheltering care, due to her
he loves? Does he not eagerly brave toil and danger,
and bear the heaviest burdens of life, sooner than the
loved one should feel the breath of heaven visit her
cheek too roughly'? And what, on the other hand, is
the character of woman's love? Is it not a clinging,
trusting tenderness? Does it not live in the sunshine
of an approving smile? Is it not so engraven in her
nature to seek a superior in the man to whom she gives
her affection, that the commonest fiction of woman's
love is to believe in that superiority where it never
existed? Does she not through her own pure thoughts
and exalted feelings invest with ideal excellence the
being whose love seems a privilege she scarce believes
herself worthy to enjoy? What woman ever truly
loved and did not rejoice to merge her will in that of
him she has chosen, the playful empire of holiday hours
forgotten in yielding tenderness when a sacrificé is
required or an act of devotion is to be accomplished?
Do not the proud become humble, the gifted diffident?
Do not the ambitious lose their ambition in dreams for
another? And are not all these so many signs that
woman's nature spontaneously looks to man as a supe-
rior, and when she does not find him so, their natural
relations are disturbed and out of harmony?
The character of the subjection is quite another
question; and that which has been so prevalent in the
world is perhaps no less opposed to nature's laws than
the theories of equality and female emancipation. But
these are individual questions, and each woman has her
424
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
own fate in this respect in her own hands. Acquiescence
in the superiority of man as a general law does not
imply acknowledgment of superiority in particular in-
stances. This or that woman, or a large number of
women, may be as superior to an equal number of
men as gifts of intellect and worth of character can
raise them above sordid or homely natures and feeble
minds; but the law remains the same, and each woman
is free to avoid binding herself in willing subjection
where she feels that the order of Nature is reversed.
The whole discussion of comparative claims, and
powers, and rights, may well be dismissed as philo-
sophically unsound, and practically vain and unwise.
The different qualities of the two sexes do not stand in
antagonism, but the one nature is the complement of
the other; improvement in the one is not a conquest
over the other, but rather reflects good upon it, and
blends with the higher qualities it has tended to foster.
So far as it is true that 'Nature is a stepmother to
women,' it is of her that we must complain, or to her
that we submit; but whatever improvement her un-
alterable laws do not prohibit we shall attain, not by
angry clamour or proud contention, but by proving our
own capacity; by rendering ourselves fit for higher
social and domestic influence; by entering into the true
spirit of that moral and intellectual vocation through
whose power the very forms of thought, and feeling,
and action in another generation wait in great measure
to be moulded by the hands of women.
THE END.


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