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    THE ENGLISH WOMAN'S JOURNAL.

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    Vol. I. June 1, 1858. No. 4.

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    XXXI.—FEMALE EDUCATION IN THE MIDDLE

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    -=SS5 »-- Nearly half a century lias ela...

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    Ar00104

    The English Woman's Journal.

    THE ENGLISH WOMAN'S JOURNAL .

    PUBLISHED MONTHLY .

    Vol. I. June 1, 1858. No. 4.

    Vol . I . June 1 , 1858 . No . 4 .

    Xxxi.—Female Education In The Middle

    XXXI . —FEMALE _EDUCATION IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES .

    -=Ss5 »-- Nearly Half A Century Lias Ela...

    -= SS 5 » -- _Nearly half a century lias elapsed since Sydney Smith penned his

    famous essay on Female Education . The growth of general education during that period has exhibited a marked and- rapid progress .

    The reading and thinking portion of the public has been doubled , trebledquadrupled . Where one read then , fifty read now . High

    and low , class Schools , Athenreums _, Mechanics' Institutes , Working Men's Colleges have sprung into existence all over the country ,

    while cheap literature has at once" created both supply and demand . At no period during the half centuryhas so great a degree of

    , activity prevailed as at the moment in which we write . In this march of intellect it behoves us especially to inquire , what position

    does woman hold ? in what way and in what commensurate proportion has female education kept pace with male ?

    In 1808 Sydney Smith wrote thus : —" The system of female education as it now stands , aims only at embellishing a few years

    of life , which are in themselves so full of grace and happiness , that they hardly want it , and then leaves the rest of existence a miserable

    prey to idle insignificance . " What advance can 1858 shew either in education itself , or in the

    ends it proposes ? Have these accomplishments been replaced by more solid training , in which individual capabilities and tendencies ,

    and not fashion , lead the way ? Has the full and free _develoj _3 nient of woman , as a human being , superseded the blind and narrow

    prejudice , which sought to make her first , man ' s plaything , and then his slave ? In short , is modern female education , in any

    substantial respect , different to what it was fifty years ago ? Looking to externals onlthe answer is unsatisfactory . Fashionable governesses

    and fashionable y , boarding-schools still hold their ground . Colleges , it is truehave of late sprung upwhere , at the discretion * or rather

    , , indiscretion of the parents , girls can be exposed to a forcing process hitherto unequalled , and which can be compared to nothing _bxit the

    gardener's exertions to produce early blossoms at the expense of the lant . FrenchLatinItalianGerman , Music , Dancing ,

    _Drawling , p Algebra , Geometry , , alternate , , with a long and laborious course of instruction in English ; studies , more than the adult brain

    VOL . I . Q

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1858, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061858/page/1/