Means and Ends of EducationSpalding, John Lancaster
Philosophy
Means and Ends of Education
Spalding, John Lancaster
Culture; Education
There is not a religion, a philosophy, a science, an art for man and
another for woman. Consequently there is not, in its essential
elements at least, an education for man and another for woman. In
souls, in minds, in consciences, in hearts, there is no sex. What is
the best education for woman? That which will best help her to become
a perfect human being, wise, loving, and strong. What is her work?
Whatever may help her to become herself. What is forbidden her?
Nothing but what degrades or narrows or warps. What has she the right
to do? Any good and beautiful and useful thing she is able to do
without hurt to her dignity and worth as a human being.
Between her and man the real question is not of more and less, of
inferiority and superiority, but of unlikeness. Chastity is woman's
great virtue; truthfulness, which is the highest form of courage, is
man's; yet men and women are equally bound to be chaste and truthful.
Mildness and sweet reasonableness are woman's subtlest charms; wisdom
and valor, man's; yet women should be wise and brave, and men should be
mild and reasonable. The spiritual endowment of the sexes is much the
same, but they are not equally interested in the same things. Man
prefers thought; woman, sentiment; he reaches his conclusions through
analysis and argument; she, through feeling and intuition. He has
greater power of self-control; she, of self-sacrifice. He is guided by
law and principle; she, by insight and tact; he demands justice; she,
equity. He wishes to be honored for wealth and position; she, for
herself. For him what he possesses is a means; for her, something to
which she holds and is attached. He asks for power; she, for
affection. He derives his idea of duty from reason; she, from faith
and love. He prefers science and philosophy; she, literature and art.
His religion is a code of morality; hers, faith and hope and love and
imagination. For her, things easily become persons; for him, persons
are little more than things. She has greater power of self-effacement,
forgetting herself wholly in her love. Whether she marry or become a
nun, she abandons her name, the symbol of her identity, in proof that
she is dedicate to the race and to God. The arguments of infidels have
less weight with her than with man, for her sense of religion is more
genuine, her faith more inevitable. She passes over objections as a
chaste mind passes over what is coarse or impure. She more easily
finds complacency in her appearance and surroundings, but she has less
pride and conceit than man. She is more grateful, too, because she
loves more, and the heart makes memory true. If her greater fondness
for jewelry and showy adornment proves her to be more barbarous, her
greater refinement and chastity prove her to be more civilized than
man. And does not her delight in dress come of her care for beauty,
which in a world of coarse and ugly creatures is a virtue as fair as
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