386 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 



possible efficiency in both. That we have been doing this in 

 our higher schools, no reflective person will claim; and as for 

 our public schools, our mistaken policy in them is not only in 

 jurious but alarming in its effects upon the female pupils. 



&quot;If viewed from the standpoint of actual instead of ideal life, 

 the course of study followed in the average female seminary 

 will logically appear as a standing wonder. It has been so long 

 in use that the principle of it may be judged by the results act 

 ually produced. Apart from an effort to discipline the mind, 

 which can as well be done by the acquisition of useful as of 

 useless knowledge, its chief purpose seems to be that of fur 

 nishing intelligent playthings for men possessing exhaustless 

 wealth.&quot; Ninety-nine out of a hundred women are called upon 

 to do some domestic work every day of their lives, and yet not 

 a ninety-ninth part of the girl s time is spent in preparation for 

 it. She has a training fitted for the professional actress, 

 preacher, astronomer, and usually leaves school without the 

 possibility or the inclination of putting these acquirements to 

 practical use. The uses of knowledge are not kept sufficiently 

 before the minds of scholars of either sex, an evil which is 

 especially hurtful to young women. Suppose, for instance, the 

 goal to be reached by every girl in getting an education is how 

 to prepare for doing a wife s and mother s work well and faith 

 fully, and that every school should say, as the Kansas trustees 

 declare with regard to their Agricultural College : &quot; Prominence 

 shall here be given to such branches of learning as relate to 

 home culture and the household arts; according to the direct 

 ness and value of such relation,&quot; would we not, in all human 

 probability, work a speedy change in the results ? 



Again, every student in the Cornell University, whatever his 

 aim, and to whatever college he belongs, is required to hear 

 one full course of lectures on agriculture, on the ground of the 

 importance of its relations to national and individual welfare. 

 Now, suppose every school thus recognized the value of the 

 domestic arts, and every young woman was obliged to pursue 

 the studies bearing upon these, up to a certain point, would not 

 this be justified by the universality of the application and use 

 of such studies ? &quot;We are aware that a mountain of prejudice 

 must be overcome before these improvements upon our present 

 system can be effected. A beginning has already been made. 

 There are now five or six institutions of great merit, which have 



