The Higher Education of Women

Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles
by C. W. Saleeby, M.D.

(Page 9 of 22)

In the last chapter brief reference was made to the effects of ill-timed mental strain. Our principles have already led us to the conclusion that there are special risks for girls involved in educational strain, and that is, of course, equally true whatever the curriculum. But that being granted, it is necessary to draw very special attention to a new movement in the higher education of women which is based upon the principle that a woman is not the same as a man; that she has special interests and duties which require no less knowledge and skill than those with which men are concerned. A tentative experiment in this direction has already, we are assured, altered the whole attitude towards life of those girls who partook in it, and there is no question that we now see the beginning of a new epoch in the higher education of women upon properly differentiated lines such as have been utterly ignored in the past.

I refer to the "Special Courses for the Higher Education of Women in Home Science and Household Economics," which now form part of the activities of the University of London at King's College. "The main object of these courses," we are told, "is to provide a thoroughly scientific education in the principles underlying the whole organization of 'Home Life,' the conduct of Institutions, and other spheres of civic and social work in which these principles are applicable." The lecturers are mainly highly qualified women, and the courses are extremely thorough and comprehensive. The following are the subjects which are dealt with: economics and ethics, psychology, biology, business matters, physiology, bacteriology, chemistry, domestic arts, sanitary science and hygiene, applied chemistry and physics.

It will be seen that there is no underrating here of the capacities of women. The courses are not limited merely to cooking and washing, though these are most carefully gone into. It is a far cry from them to psychology and ethics or "A Sketch of the Historical Development of the Household in England." One can imagine the joy with which girls, largely nourished on the husks which constitute most of the educational curricula of boys, will turn to a series of lectures on Child Psychology, that deal with the general course of mental development in the child, with interest and attention, the processes of learning, mental fatigue and adolescence. The highest capacities of the mind in women are not ignored when we find included a course of which the special text-book is Spencer's "Data of Ethics."

One can imagine also that the course on the elements of general economics, with its study of wealth and value and price, the laws of production and distribution, may bring into being a kind of housewife who, whether or not eligible for Parliament, would certainly be a much more desirable member thereof than nine-tenths of the prosperous gentlemen who daily record their opinions there upon matters they know not of. All who care at all for womanhood or for England must rejoice in the beginnings of this revised version of higher education for women which, for once in a way, finds London a pioneer. We must have such courses all over the country. Every father who can afford it must give his girls the incalculable benefit of such opportunities. The gir. Therefore educated will glory in her womanhood, and will help to gain for it its right estimation and position in the state.

But it is to be pointed out that such courses as these, admirable though they be, are yet not everything. The influence of our great national deity, which is Mrs. Grundy, is apparent still. It is not specifically recognized that the highest destiny of a woman is motherhood, though in such courses as this motherhood will doubtless be served directly and indirectly in many ways. There is, nevertheless, required something more - something indeed no less than conscious, purposeful education for parenthood.

The chief obstacle in the way of this ideal is Anglo-Saxon prudery, and, perhaps, the reader will not be persuaded that education for parenthood is our greatest educational need today, more especially for girls, until he or she has been persuaded of the magnitude of the preventable evils which flow from our present neglect of this matter. In the following chapter, therefore, one may point out what prudery costs us at present, and indeed, the reader may then be persuaded that education for parenthood, or, as it may be called, eugenic education, is, perhaps, the most important subject that can be discussed today in any book on womanhood.

Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co., New York.
Copyright 1911 by Mitchell Kennerley.