=Formal School Training of Women New.=--When the principle of
democracy began to work in women's natures with an irrepressible yeast
of revolt against longer denial of opportunity for individual
achievement, and the vitally necessary and too-long-delayed "woman's
rights movement" was born, its first pressure was against the closed
doors of the "man-made" school. Enlightened women now demanded equal
chance with men for preparation for vocations. The school they sought
to enter was inherited from a past in which not only sex lines but
class lines held the opportunities of higher education for a small
clique. The ancient college and university did indeed lead towards
vocations, but only the three "learned professions" and general
training for commanding leadership in state and industrial affairs.
When physical, economic, and social sciences were born the study
disciplines they introduced into higher education appeared in answer
to an imperious social demand that leadership should be provided in a
vastly more varied range than the older civilization required. At
first the leaders in the higher education of women, like all _nouveaux
riche_, showed determination to prove themselves adept in the
traditions of the scholastic world into which they had so recently
entered. Classic curricula were strictly adhered to and all
"practical" courses viewed with open distrust except those leading to
the inherited professions, and to teaching, as these were pushed
upward toward college professorships. Happily, however, almost
coincident with the entrance of women into larger educational
opportunity came the broadening of that educational opportunity itself
to which reference has been made; and the marvelous growth of the
State Universities in the United States rapidly increased both the
more varied vocational stimuli and the wider preparation for
leadership now opening in our country for women as for men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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