32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pect a man to become a distinguished engineer or a professor of 

 Latin by studying a little literature, history, music, and lan- 

 guage ; yet we expect a woman to undertake an occupation for 

 which, in this age at least, a certain definite kind of training is 

 necessary, without anything more applicable than " general cul- 

 ture," 



The want of co-ordination between training and the needs of 

 life in the education of women has repeatedly brought into ques- 

 tion the desirability of the higher education at all for a woman 

 who is to return to the home. As a result, there is a distinct 

 tendency to demand a differentiation in the education of women. 

 The recent proposal of a new type of woman's college is, in fact, 

 a demand for a separate technical school in which there shall be 

 a liberal scientific training with special reference to their domes- 

 tic occupations and functions. 



This is, however, not a new idea. In all those State colleges in 

 which agriculture and the mechanic arts are taught a similar 

 problem and a like solution were presented. The farmers de- 

 manded that the agricultural colleges teach how to plow, sow, and 

 reap, rather than how to think ; as a result, many of these insti- 

 tutions are to-day little more than high schools, with manual 

 training added. In others it was perceived that, to make a suc- 

 cessful farmer or engineer, a man must have the power to think 

 clearly, accurately, effectively on any subject. The best agricul- 

 tural colleges give little beyond what may be called laboratory 

 demonstrations in field and barn, while the most progressive en- 

 gineering schools no longer attempt to turn out skilled mechan- 

 ics. Teachers of these subjects prophesy the complete elimination 

 of shop work and practical farm operations from university 

 courses, and their relegation to the position of entrance require- 

 ments. 



Shall, then, the woman's college be a technical school, where 

 she may learn all the practical details of housekeeping and sani- 

 tary science ? It is the same problem, and must also be answered 

 in the negative. Technical schools, wherever outside the uni- 

 versity atmosphere, show a fatal lack of breadth. Physicians 

 with only the training of the medical school, engineers with na 

 ideas beyond their own specialty, farmers who despise pure sci- 

 ence, housewives who are only perfect housekeepers, are the in- 

 evitable product of a purely technical education. 



While such propositions as this are being widely discussed, 

 the true solution is coming by a natural process. Within the 

 boundaries of the new universities a few courses are offered to 

 meet the specific needs of women's occupations. What women 

 need is not to know how to cook, and wash, and lay a table, but 

 how to think out clearly, accurately, and effectively any problem 



