Oct. 26, 1871] 

NATURE 
515 

THOUGATS ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION 
OF WOMEN * 
ERE are certain confusions of ideas as to the proper range 
and extent of the education of women, with other and vastly 
different questions as to the right of the softer sex to enter upon 
certain kinds of professional training. Let us endeavour to get 
rid of some of these misconceptions. In the first place, no one 
denies the right to an equality of the sexes in all the elementary 
education given in ordinary schools. This is admitted to be an 
essential preparation in the case of all persons of both sexes and 
of all grades of social p: sition for the ordinary work of life. 
But when we leave the threshold of the common school, a di- 
vergence of op‘nion and practice at once manifests itself. Only 
a certain limited proportion either of men or women can go on to 
a higher education, and those who are thus selected are either 
those who by wealh and social position are enabled or obliged 
to do so, or those who intend to enter into professions which are 
believed to demand a larger amount of learning. The question 
of the higher education of women in any country depends very 
much on the relative numhers of these classes among men and 
women, and the views which may be generally held as to the 
importance of education for ordinary life, as contrasted with 
professional life. Now in Canada the number of young men 
who receive a higher education merely to fit them for occupying 
a high social position is very small. The greater number of 
the young men who pass through our colleges do so under the 
compulsion of a necessity to fit themselves for certain professions. 
On the other hand, with the exception of those young women 
who receive an education for the profession of teaching, the great 
majority of those who obtain what is regarded as higher culture, 
do so merely as a means of general improvement and to fit them- 
selves better to take their proper place in society, Certain curious 
and important consequences flow from this, An education ob. 
tained for practical professional purposes is likely to partake of 
this characier in its nature, and to run in the direction rather of 
hard utility than of ornament. An education obtained as a 
means of rendering its possessor agreeable is likely to be 
zestletical in its character rather than practical or useful. 
An education pursued as a means of bread-winning is likely 
to be sought by the active and ambitious of very various 
social grades. An educaiion which is thought merely to fit 
for a certain social position is likely to be sought almost ex- 
clusively by those who move in that position, An education in- 
tended for recognised practical uses, is likely to find public sup- 
port, and at the utmost to bear a fair market price. An educa- 
tion supposed to have a merely conventional value as a branch of 
refined culture, is likely to be at a fancy price. Hence it happens 
that the young men who receive a higher education and by means 
of this attain to positions of respectability and eminence, are 
largely drawn from the humbler strata in society, while the young 
women of those social levels rarely aspire to similar advantages. 
On the other hand, while numbers of young men of wealthy 
families are sent into business with a merely commercial educa- 
tion at a very early age, their sisters are occupied with the pur- 
suit of accomplishmen's of which their more practical brothers never 
dream. When toall this is added the frequency and rapidity in 
this country of changes in social standing, it is easy to see that an 
educational chaos must result, most amusing to any one who can 
philosophically contempiate it as an outsider, but most bewilder- 
ing to all who have any practical concern with it ; and more 
especially, I should suppose, to careful and thoughtful mothers, 
whose minds are occupied with the connections which their 
daughters may form, and the positions which they may fill in 
society. The educational problem which these facts present 
admits, I believe, of but two general solutions. If we could 
involve women in the same necessities for independent exertion 
and professional work with men, I have no doubt that in the 
struggle for existence they would secure to themselves an equal, 
perhaps greater, share of the more solid kinds of the higher 
education, Some strong-minded women and chivalrous men in 
our day favour this solution, which has, it must be confessed, 
more show of reason in older countries where, from unhealthy 
social conditions, great numbers of unmarried women have to 
contend for their own subsistence. But it is opposed by all the 
healthier instincts of our humanity. A better solution would be 
to separate:in the case of both sexes professional from general 
education, fand to secure a large amount of the former of a 
“ Extracted from the Introductory Lecture to the First Session of the 
Classes of the Ladies’ Educational Association of Montreal, October, 1871, 
by Principal Dawson, LL D., F.R.S. 


solid and practical character for both sexes, for its own sake, 
and because of its beneficial results in the promotion of our 
well-being considered as individuals, as wellasin our family, social 
and professional relations. This solution also has its difficulties, 
and it can, I fear, never be fully worked out, until eithera higher 
intellectual and moral tone be reached insociety, or until nations 
visit with proper penalries the failure, on the part of those who have 
the means, to give to their chi!dren the highest attainable education, 
and with this also provide the means for educating all those who, 
in the lower schools, prove themselves to be possessed of eminent 
abilities. It may be long before such laws can be instituted, 
even in the more educated communities ; and in the meantime 
in aid of that higher appreciation of the benefits of education 
which may supply a better if necessarily less effectual stimulus, 
I desire to direct your attention to a few considerations which 
show that young women, viewed not as future lawyers, hysicians, 
politicians, or even teachers, but as future wives and mothers, 
should enjoy a high and liberal culture, and which may help us 
to understand the nature and means of such culture. BS 6 
It isin the maternal relation that the importance of the edu- 
cation of woman appears most clearly. It requires no. very 
extensive study of biography to learn that it is of less conse- 
quence to any one what sort of father he may have had than what 
sort of mother. It is indeed a popular impression that the chil- 
dren of clever fathers are likely to exhibit the opposite quality. 
This I do not believe, except in so far as it results from the fact 
that men in public positions or immersed in business are apt to 
neglect the oversight of their children. But it is a noteworthy 
fact that eminent qualities in men may almost always be traced 
to similar qualities in their mothers. Knowledge, it is true, is 
not hereditary, but training and culture and high mental quali- 
ties are so, and [ believe that the transmission is chiefly through 
the mother’s side. Further, it is often to the girls rather than to 
the boys, and it frequently happens that if a selection were to be 
made as to the members of a family most deserving of an elabo- 
rate and costly education, the young women would be chosen 
rather than the young men. But leaving this physiological view, 
let us look at the purely educational. Imagine an educated 
mother, training and moulding the powers of her children, giving 
to them in the years of infancy those gentle yet permanent ten- 
dencies which are of more account in the formation of character 
than any subsequent educational influences, selecting for them 
the best instructors, encouraging and aiding them in their diffi- 
culties, sympa ‘hising with them in their successes, able to take 
an intelligent interest in their progress in literature and science, 
How ennobling such an influence, how fruitful of good results, 
how certain to secure the warm and lasting gratitude of those 
who have received its benefits, when they lcok back in future 
life on the paths of wisdom along which they have been led. 
What a contrast to this is the position of an untaught mother— 
finding her few superficial accomplishments of no account in the 
work of life, unable wisely to guide the rapidly-developing 
mental life of her children, bringing them up to repeat her own 
failures and errors, or perhaps to despise her as ignorant of what 
they must learn. Truly the art and profession of a mother is the 
noblest and most far-reaching of all, and she who would worthily 
discharge its duties must be content with no mean preparation. 
It is perhaps worth while also to say here that these duties and 
responsibilities in the future are not to be measured altogether by 
those of the past. The young ladies of to-day will have greater 
demands made on their knowledge than those which were made 
on their predecessors. 
But the question has still other aspects. A woman may be 
destined to Gwell apart—to see the guides and friends of youth 
disappearing one by one, or entering on new relations that sepa- 
rate them from her, and with this isolation may come the hard 
necessity to earn bread. How many thus situated must sink 
into an unhappy and unloved dependence? How much better 
to be able to take some useful place in the world, and to gain an 
honourable subsistence ! But to do so, there must be a founda- 
tion of early culture, and this of a sound and serviceable kind. 
Or take another picture. Imagine a woman possessing abund- 
ance of this world’s goods, and free from engrossing cares. If 
idle and ignorant, she must either retire into an unworthy insig- 
nificance, or must expose herself to be the derision of the shrewd 
and clever and the companion of fools. Perhaps, worse than 
this, she may be a mere leader in thoughtless gaiety, a snare and 
a trap to the unwary, a leader of unsuspicious youth into the 
ways of dissipation. On the other hand, she may aspire to be a 
wise steward of the goods bestowed on her, a centre of influence, 
aid, and counsel in every good work, a shelter and support to the 
