370 



SCIENCE. 



[TOL. IX., ^'o. 219 



of the citizen, he descends from his Sinai, 

 not to despise the mean things of the daily life, 

 but now rather to see the God of the mountain- 

 top in them, and to illumine all with the light 

 that comes from within. He no longer sees with 

 the eye of sense. For him nature is now bathed 

 in the light that never was on sea or shore. The 

 glory of setting suns, with all its splendor, is now 

 to him only a dwelling-place for the universal 

 spirit ; the infinite variety of nature, only the gar- 

 ment we see Him by. The palpitating thought 

 which is aU, and in all, now finds in the spirit of 

 man a responsive pulse. Blessed is the coming 

 of that day. It is to sow the germs of this life 

 of the spirit, to foster this into adolescence, if not 

 maturity, that the university exists ; to give food, 

 nutrition of this kind, — to supply the spiritual 

 manna which will never fail us in the wilderness- 

 wandering of earthly existence, as each morning 

 we rise to a new day. The discipline of this 

 period is se?/-discipline. Such I conceive to be 

 the three stages of education. These be brave 

 words, some of you, perhaps, will say, but what 

 guidance do they afford? By what cunning ap- 

 plication can they be made to bear on the business 

 of the teacher's life? The application will be ap- 

 parent enough to others. Depend on it, princi- 

 ples are the most practical, the most potent, of all 

 things. They are inexhaustible fountains of 

 every-day detail. S. S. Laurie. 



THE PRUSSIAN MINISTEB OF INSTRUC- 

 TION ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 



Minister von Gossler presided over the tenth 

 annual congress of teachers in high schools for 

 girls at Berlin, at which about five hundred teach- 

 ers were present. In his opening address, Herr von 

 Go&sler discussed female education in general, and 

 stated that the chief difficulties connected with 

 the instruction in girls' schools are two: "first, 

 there are still a great many men and women who 

 hold that a girl's character, and the emotional 

 part of her nature, are the only things that require 

 developing, but that the intellectual side may be 

 left to chance ; second, society is at present in such 

 a state, that the question, ' What will become of 

 our daughters ? ' is uppermost in the minds of the 

 parents and of all true friends of the people. The 

 serious nature of these problems has often led to 

 attempts at introducing things into girls' schools 

 which do not belong to them, and at putting girls 

 in every respect upon an equality with boys. As 

 Teutons and as Christians, we must ever hold that 

 woman has equal rights with man, but on physio- 

 logical grounds she is not the same in nature as 

 man. Hence the aim of education should be to 



recognize this diversity of characteristics, and to 

 build accordingly. It must also be remembered 

 that the school has no claim on girls for as long a 

 period as on boys, — a difference which is based in 

 part on the natural difference of sex, and in part 

 on time-honored custom. The principles on which 

 woman in Germany has been developed, and 

 which are rooted in our nature, must be preserved 

 and handed to our descendants as intact as we 

 found them. Woman here, the centre of all Chris- 

 tian, humane, and ideal thoughts, is rightly con- 

 sidered with us as the centre of the home and the 

 family. The best men and women of all times 

 have always held that the well-being of a nation 

 is based on family -life, on the home, and on 

 woman. I say woman, for I do not mean specially 

 the wife. Therefore our endeavors must be to 

 hand down the nature of woman, with all the 

 perfections inherent in it, unaltered to future gen- 

 erations. Woman belongs to the home, and must 

 live for it : her share in art and science must al- 

 ways be looked upon as a secondary consideration. 

 At a later period of the session, Herr Wiibchen- 

 Oldenburg, director of a high school for girls, of- 

 fered a resolution stating that the object of educa- 

 tion for girls should be to train woman to be the 

 helpmeet of man, intellectually as well as other- 

 wit^e. He claimed that "this aim is not attained 

 — often it is made impossible^ through the in- 

 crease in the number of subjects taught, which 

 leads to superficial knowledge. Hence the sub- 

 ject-matter of the studies is to be restricted rather 

 than extended. It might well lose in breadth in 

 order to gain in depth. The school- course ought 

 to remain as it was fixed at the meeting of 1873, 

 from the end of the sixth to the end of the six- 

 teenth year. The new plan of studies ought to be 

 tried provisionally in Berlin, before applying it to 

 the country at large. The results of the discus- 

 sions seem to be that the number of school-hours, 

 at least for the four lowest classes, should be di- 

 minished, the subjects now taught should be re- 

 arranged, and more time should be allowed for 

 bodily exercise. 



POLITICAL EDUCATION. 



Mr. Frederic Harrison, the well-known English 

 essayist and follower of August Comte, is presi- 

 dent of the Social and political education league 

 of England. He took for the subject of his recent 

 presidential address ' Political education,' and 

 spoke at some length. He referred to the great 

 political excitement of the time, and pointed out 

 that public opinion needs to be continually re- 

 minded, that, if politics is to be fruitful, it must 

 be based on history, law, and philosophy. He 



