79 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



so to speak, of refinement, and that, as a result, we should tend to im- 

 pair the delicate growth of that which we all recognize as of para- 

 mount value in education good breeding. I can only say I am fully 

 persuaded, by the results I have seen, that such would not be the case. 

 The feelings and the manners of a lady are imparted by inheritance 

 and by the society in which she lives, and no amount of drilling by 

 schoolmistresses will produce more than an artificial imitation of the 

 natural reality. Therefore, once let a girls' school be a little society 

 of little ladies, and we need never fear that active play, natural to their 

 age and essential to their health, will make them less ladylike than 

 does the stiff restraint of the present system. Rather would active 

 play, during the years of bodily growth, by developing the coordinated 

 use of all the muscles, tend to imj^art through after-life that grace of 

 easy movement which we all admire, but the secret of which is truly 

 revealed only to the children of nature. 



So much, then, for bodily recreation in girls' schools. As regards 

 their mental recreation, I should begin by recommending less mental 

 work. In most of the higher-class girls' schools, as in boys' schools, a 

 great deal more work is required than it is either judicious or desirable 

 to require. The root of this evil is that a girl's education is usually 

 made to terminate at the age of seventeen or eighteen, and, as a con- 

 sequence, she is expected to gain during these early years of life a suf- 

 ficient amount of book-learning to serve for the rest of her days. In 

 many cases it is, no doubt, unavoidable that a girl's education should 

 end when she leaves school ; but I think that, in all cases, education 

 ought to be less arduous than it is in many of our girls' schools. Even 

 if education is to end with school-life, it is better that it should end 

 with a little knowledge thoroughly acquired, than with a confused 

 and half-forgotten medley of many subjects. Not that I advocate 

 specialty and depth of knowledge for girls. On the contrary, I think 

 that the aim here ought rather to be that of generality and width 

 languages, elementary mathematics, geography, history, art, science, 

 and English literature being all taught, but taught superficially, or 

 without much detail, and in as entertaining a manner as possible. The 

 point, however, which I desire chiefly to insist upon is this, that school- 

 girls ought not to be made or encouraged to work beyond their 

 strength. In most girls' schools competition runs very high ; and I 

 am quite sure that in very many cases the aim of the schoolmistress 

 ought to be to check its undue severity, rather than to stimulate that 

 severity by competitive examinations. I have myself known many 

 cases of girls sitting up late, rising early, and working all day to win 

 their coveted prizes a state of things which is a sufficiently crying 

 evil even in boys' schools, but which is a still worse evil in girls worse 

 because the physique of a girl is usually less robust than that of a boy, 

 and because the schoolgirl is doomed to a smaller amount of outdoor 

 exercise. 



