HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 471 



because the universities and boarding-schools have within the last ten 

 years foreseen this danger and met it by special courses of instruc- 

 tion in athletics and the encouraging of girls to spend a good deal of 

 time in outdoor sports. But even these universities and schools can- 

 not avoid the charge of fostering a condition of intellectual pride, 

 which is in exact proportion to the success of the school or college. 

 There is no doubt that women can do everything that men can do, 

 and a great deal more; but the knowledge of their ability brings with 

 it an aggressive, self-assertive, independent character, which renders 

 it impossible to love, honor and obey the men of their social circles 

 who are the brothers of their schoolmates, and who in the effort to 

 become rich enough to afford the luxury of a highly educated wife 

 have to begin young at business or in the factory, and for whom it 

 is impossible to ever place themselves on an intellectual equality with 

 the women whom they should marry. These men are, as a rule, re- 

 fused by the brilliant college graduate, and are either shipwrecked 

 for life and for eternity by remaining single, or are only saved by 

 marrying a woman who is their social inferior, but who, by reason of 

 her contented mind, in the end makes them a much better helpmate 

 than the fault-finding intellectual woman who is looking for an im- 

 possible ideal. 



The catholic church has, for many centuries, realized the impor- 

 tance of marriage and maternity in the upbuilding and strengthening of 

 religious life in the community; and if the protestant churches are 

 not to be emptied of their male attendance, the protestant clergy must 

 speak out in no uncertain tone against the present methods of educa- 

 tion, which are turning out women by the thousands, with require- 

 ments so varied and so great that no young man can afford to marry 

 them; a step, moreover, which he is deterred from taking by the dis- 

 couraging report of those of his friends who have ventured to marry 

 the women of their own class, and who have advised them, in the 

 words of Punch : ' To those about to marry, don't.' Whether a man 

 should marry or not is too often spoken of lightly and as a joke. 

 But to those who believe in the immortality of the soul, and that the 

 whole world avails nothing to a man if he loses it, the possibility of 

 early and happy marriages becomes a question of the vastest impor- 

 tance and one which students of sociology, and the fathers of the nation 

 should study with the most intense anxiety and care. 



Occasionally a college graduate goes through the ordeal* of a high 

 education, which has developed her intellect without ruining either 



* The following subjects from the curriculum of a well known girl's college : 

 Latin, Greek, French, German, English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astron- 

 omy, history, sociology, economics, logic, psychology, philosophy, literature, 

 fine arts, biology, physical training, physiology. 



