The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on EducationPalmer, Alice Freeman
Philosophy
The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on Education
Palmer, Alice Freeman
Education; Education, Higher; Women -- Education
To a largely increasing number of young girls college doors are opening
every year. Every year adds to the number of men who feel as a friend of
mine, a successful lawyer in a great city, felt when in talking of the
future of his four little children he said, "For the two boys it is not
so serious, but I lie down at night afraid to die and leave my daughters
only a bank account." Year by year, too, the experiences of life are
teaching mothers that happiness does not necessarily come to their
daughters when accounts are large and banks are sound, but that on the
contrary they take grave risks when they trust everything to accumulated
wealth and the chance of a happy marriage. Our American girls themselves
are becoming aware that they need the stimulus, the discipline, the
knowledge, the interests of the college in addition to the school, if
they are to prepare themselves for the most serviceable lives.
But there are still parents who say, "There is no need that my daughter
should teach; then why should she go to college?" I will not reply that
college training is a life insurance for a girl, a pledge that she
possesses the disciplined ability to earn a living for herself and
others in case of need; for I prefer to insist on the importance of
giving every girl, no matter what her present circumstances, a special
training in some one thing by which she can render society service, not
of amateur but of expert sort, and service too for which it will be
willing to pay a price. The number of families will surely increase who
will follow the example of an eminent banker whose daughters have been
given each her specialty. One has chosen music, and has gone far with
the best masters in this country and in Europe, so far that she now
holds a high rank among musicians at home and abroad. Another has taken
art; and has not been content to paint pretty gifts for her friends, but
in the studios of New York, Munich, and Paris she has won the right to
be called an artist, and in her studio at home to paint portraits which
have a market value. A third has proved that she can earn her living, if
need be, by her exquisite jellies, preserves, and sweetmeats. Yet the
house in the mountains, the house by the sea, and the friends in the
city are not neglected, nor are these young women found less attractive
because of their special accomplishments.
While it is not true that all girls should go to college any more than
that all boys should go, it is nevertheless true that they should go in
greater numbers than at present. They fail to go because they, their
parents, and their teachers, do not see clearly the personal benefits
distinct from the commercial value of a college training. I wish here to
discuss these benefits, these larger gifts of the college life,--what
they may be, and for whom they are waiting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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