The Education of American GirlsBrackett, Anna C. (Anna Callender)
General
The Education of American Girls
Brackett, Anna C. (Anna Callender)
Women -- Education -- United States
In one word, our girls should be so educated intellectually that there
will no longer be any internal barriers to their progress, and when this
is done they will find that the external barriers, against which they
fret themselves, have disappeared. When Britomart had fairly conquered
and bound with his own chains the enchanter within the castle, she
found, as she passed out, that the castle walls, the iron doors and the
fire which had barred her entrance had no longer any existence. We can
yet afford to learn lessons of wisdom from the prophetic "woman's poet"
of the sixteenth century.
Whether our school girls and college girls will be injured physically,
mentally or morally, by granting to the boy and man students, in our
high schools and universities, the advantage of fellow-workers of the
other sex, is a question which, though practically settled to a large
extent by experience, ought not perhaps to be passed over here in
entire silence. One very curious feature of this question with regard to
the education of our girls seems to be this: those who are most urgent
that the question should be decided by facts do not bring them forward,
but base their position on general principles assumed, and on theory. As
has been well said by President White, of Cornell, to seek for
information on the real results, so far, of the experiment in our
colleges from the authorities of colleges that have never tried it,
would be to commit the same absurdity as "if the Japanese authorities,
aroused to the necessities of railroads and telegraphs, had corresponded
with eminent Chinese philosophers regarding the ethics of the subject,
instead of sending persons to observe the working of railroads and
telegraphs where they were already in use." Where inquiries were made of
universities which had never tried the experiment, "the majority of
responses were overwhelmingly against the admission of women. It was
declared to be 'contrary to nature,' 'likely to produce confusion,'
'dangerous,' 'at variance with the ordinances of God;' in short, every
argument that a mandarin would be sure to evolve from his interior
consciousness against a railroad or a telegraph which he had never
seen."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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