i 7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



at great expense, girls who may marry, and so render the whole out- 

 lay of no avail. 2. The effect which this higher education has on the 

 woman and the individual. 3. The physical results on her health and 

 strength, especially in relation to her probable maternity. 



To give a good education to a boy is to lay the foundations, not 

 only for a successful individual life, but also those for a well-conditioned 

 family. It is the only thing a man can do who has no fortune to leave 

 his son, and is, in fact, a fortune under another form. With a good 

 education, and brains to profit by it, nothing is impossible. From the 

 Prime Minister to the Lord Chancellor, from the Archbishop of York 

 to the leader of the House of Commons, a clever lad, well educated, 

 has all professional possibilities before him — as the French private has 

 the marshal's baton in his knapsack. But to go to the like expense for 

 the education of a daughter is by no means the same investment, nor 

 can it be made to produce the same return. Where the man's educa- 

 tion enables him to provide for his family, a woman's may be entirely 

 thrown away for all remunerative results to herself and others. In- 

 deed, it may be hurtful rather than beneficial. ,At the best — taking 

 things by their rule and not by their exceptions — it is helpful to her- 

 self only ; for the women of the professional class, like those of the 

 laboring, support only themselves. For which cause, we may say 

 parenthetically, they are able to undercut the men, and can afford to 

 work for less than can those who have wives and children to support. 

 And this is the reason — again parenthetically — why men try to keep 

 them out of certain trades ; seeing in them not so much honest com- 

 petitors for so much work, as the ultimate destroyers of the home and 

 the family itself. In the education, too, of his sons a father discrimi- 

 nates and determines according to their future. The boy intended 

 for commerce he does not usually send to college ; nor is stress laid 

 on Latin or Greek or art or literature at school. For the one destined 

 to the law or the church he stipulates for a sound classical training, 

 and ultimately sends him to the university. For the artist he does 

 not demand science ; for the engineer he does not demand music — 

 and so on. Almost all boys who have their own way to make are edu- 

 cated with a distinct reference to their future work ; and wise men 

 agree on the folly of wasting time and force on useless acquirements, 

 with corresponding neglect of those which are useful. But how can 

 girls be educated in this special manner? What professions are open 

 to them as to men ? The medical alone of the three learned, public 

 opinion not yet being ripe for barristers in petticoats or for women 

 preachers regularly ordained and beneficed ; while the army and navy 

 are still more closely shut against those ambitious amazons who think 

 there should be no barriers against them in the barrack-yard or on the 

 quarter-deck, and that what any individual Avoman can do she gbould 

 be allowed to do, general rules of prohibition notwithstanding. The 

 higher education gives us better teachers, more accurate writers, and 



