146 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 211 



Eliot in all the latter's recent controversies respect- 

 ing his favorite elective system, and seems to 

 show himself quite as favorably disposed toward 

 the elective system, pure and simple, as toward 

 the scheme of parallel courses, to the development 

 of which he has hitherto given so much thought. 

 The article will shed a flood of light upon the edu- 

 cational discussions in this country as they appear 

 to foreign readers, and it will set some facts even 

 more clearly before our own countrymen. 



What teachers should read, is an interesting 

 question, and one about which there is more or 

 less misconception. Some persons seem to think, 

 that, because teachers are teachers, they cease to 

 be men and women. At least this is the inference 

 which we feel justified in drawing from much 

 that is written and said on this subject. Lists of 

 books that it is desirable that teachers should 

 read, are drawn up, but in nine cases out of ten 

 they contain none but professional works. This is 

 undesirable, for a variety of reasons. In the first 

 place, it narrows the teachers view, confines his 

 sympathies, and aids in the development of notions 

 and methods best denominated as 'cranky.' 

 Then, too, pedagogic literature is not a thing to 

 be indiscriminately recommended to teachers. 

 It needs severe critical revision, before all the 

 harmful and time-wasting elements in it are elim- 

 inated. Rosenkranz points out, in his ' Philosophy 

 of education,' that the treatises on education 

 abound more in shallowness than any other litera- 

 ture. Short-sightedness and arrogance, he says, 

 find in educational literature a most congenial at- 

 mosphere, and uncritical methods and declamatory 

 bombast flourish there as nowhere else. All this 

 must be recognized and guarded against ; and from 

 what we see of current educational literature, 

 periodical and otherwise, it is not yet recognized 

 and guarded against sufficiently. An inconceiv- 

 able amount of nonsense is talked and written 

 about education. Dr. William T. Harris, in a re- 

 cent note on this subject of reading for teachers, 

 very sensibly urges a course of reading for teach- 

 ers that will secure general culture, and furnish 

 new inspiration in the task of instruction. Dr. 

 Harris mentions a number of books as suitable for 

 this purpose, and, though neither complete nor 

 satisfactory, it serves well enough to emphasize 

 the fact that teachers retain their humanity, and 

 by how much the more they cultivate and broaden 

 it, by so much do they increase the value and 

 efficiency of their teaching-powers. 



Dr. Withers-Moore's address on the subject 

 of the higher education of women, delivered before 

 the British medical association, has raised a great 

 storm of indignation among the advocates of 

 women's higher education, both in England and 

 in this country. We have, from time to time,^ 

 called attention to various phases of the argument 

 as it has proceeded. Mrs. William Grey, in a 

 paper read recently before the ladies' council of 

 education, at Leeds, is the last participant in the 

 controversy. She passes by Dr. Withers-Moore's 

 argument, with the remark that no time need be 

 wasted in ' flogging a dead horse,' and criticises at 

 some length the statement of Dr. B. Ward Rich- 

 ardson, that, "there is nothing in women's con- 

 stitution, physical, moral, or mental, to prevent 

 their competing successfully with men in any 

 field of labor whatsoever, provided they will paif 

 the price for it.'" This price Dr. Richardson had 

 asserted to be the loss of grace and beauty, and the 

 renunciation of all the joys of home and family,, 

 especially motherhood. Mrs. Grey admits that 

 marriage so severely handicaps a woman that 

 there is little if any chance of her reaching the 

 top of the professional tree. She claims, however, 

 that Dr. Richardson's arguments, in common with 

 those of nearly all writers and speakers opposed 

 to the ' claims of women,' are vitiated by the fact 

 that they apply, not to women as a sex, but only 

 to that small minority whose circumstances per- 

 mit them to choose between work and idleness, — 

 " between going into the battle of life, or sitting at 

 home at ease, while it is fought for theni by 

 others." 



This minority is so small that Mrs. Grey pre. 

 fers to regard it as constituting the exceptions to 

 the universal rule that women, as a sex, take, if 

 anything, more than their fair share in the hard 

 work of the world, while fulfilling at the same 

 time their special function of motherhood. She 

 quotes some instances from her experiences in 

 Italy, and becomes indignant at the idea that the 

 strain upon a woman's physical powers unfits her 

 for her peculiar functions as a mother. "The 

 hoUowness of the talk about woman's work, and 

 what they have or have not strength for," says 

 Mrs. Grey, "is made manifest the moment we 

 look outside drawing-rooms to the real facts of 

 woman's life as a whole." It might be suggested 

 in reply to this argument, that it is precisely this 

 class of women, whom Mrs. Grey treats as excep- 

 tions to the general rule, that the higher education 



