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130 NOTICES OF BOOKS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Contempoeaey Germain" Iiitera.Tuhe No. I...
was then called ) was next introduced to school-life under the superintendence of Herr and Madame Ulrich ; a worthy couplewho
dis-, charged the duties of their office with conscientious zeal . Here for the first time she was seized with a restless fever for knowledge , 1
combined with a yearningto break through the routine of everyday lifeand a dissatisfied craving for something higher than the
ordinary , position of womanhood . It was well for her that the home education so common in Germany ( where -women of all ranks of
society think it no degradation to take active part in manual occupation ) was such as to necessitate exertion and to counteract these
morbid feelings . This feverish thirst for knowledge was perfectly incomprehensible to her more narrow-minded but thoroughly
practical mother , who forced her to attend to duties she might otherwise have scorned as trifling . _Lamartine has remarked that it is a
peculiarity of our age to undervalue handicraft . In the Middle Ages the skilful artizan was valued as highly as the artist . We are no
advocates for keeping * women with nimble fingers and dormant understandings , till the season for higher improvement is passed , and the
vacant mind becomes a plenum , full of ennui and discontent . But we must beware lest in our reaction from one error of education we
rush violently to the opposite extreme . In each country or century there is usually a decided preference for some peculiar system of
education over others ; excess in one direction being generally followed by reaction in another . Let us hope that in England we are passing
over that rage for mere accomplishments which ( as Sydney Smitli said ) reduced the whole existences of responsible beings into one Olympic
game ; as if immortal creatures could go oil dancing and feasting to the verge of the graveor as if it were possible to compensate for the
, dreariness of old age , by a _" short-lived blaze . " But the Germans have ever understood too much of the social
and elevating nature of the fine arts to lower them into instruments for producing a temporary effect . In plain household
management and the careful superintendence of servants , they are in somewhat the same position as our ancestors a century ago . There
is much good sense in this tuition . Fanny Lewald quitted school with the following wise advice from her master : — " To keep our
minds from error , and our hearts from egotism , is the great task of our lives—the great end of all education , and of that education
of ourselves wliich commences when our instructors leave us , and when the hands of those who have protected us from infancy
can guide us no further . " Entering upon life as the eldest daughter of her father ' s household , she was called upon to fulfil a regular
routine of duties , arranged according to the seasons and the different days of the weeks . Five or six hours every day were to be devoted
to household workunder her mother ' s superintendence . Studies , were allowed to be pursued at intervals with nothing more
ornaof mental this th kind an musi altern c , and ating no f other rom books language to laund than French ry occupation . A system and
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130 Notices Of Books.
130 NOTICES OF BOOKS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1862, page 130, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041862/page/58/
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