Home Life and the Higher Education of Women.
by Mrs. Creighton.
Volume 7, 1896, pgs. 500-512
(Continued from pg. 413.)
As a rule, we find that women are compelled to leave home if they wish to devote themselves to serious work of any kind. It is interesting to notice how this used to be the case during the only former period in which the higher education of women was at all seriously considered, the early middle ages. Then it was that men and women alike, when they wished to study, withdrew to convents. It is generally overlooked that study played a large, if not the largest, part in the early convent life of women. Ealdhelm [St. Aldhelm], in a work called "De laudibus Virginitatis," written in the seventh century, speaks of nuns as "like unto bees, collecting everywhere material for study." Of Lioba, Abbess of Bischofsheim in 757, we read "that bishops gladly entertained her, and conversed with her on the scriptures and on the institutions of religion, for she was familiar with many writings." Our own Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I., brought up at the nunnery at Romsey, wrote fluent Latin, and spoke not only of the Fathers of the Church, but quoted from classical writers. Those who wish to know more on this interesting subject should read the admirable work on "Women under Monasticism," by Miss [Lina] Eckenstein, which has lately appeared. She says that, as time went on, "the standard of education in the average nunnery deteriorated, because devotional interests were cultivated to the exclusion of everything else." Why this was so is outside our purpose to inquire, but we know that the standard of education deteriorated equally amongst monks, and the curious thing is that when at the dissolution it was recognised that some, at least, of the wealth which the piety of earlier ages had left for the promotion of learning in convents should be given to found schools and colleges, the claims of women were altogether ignored; nay, more, wherever the property of women was appropriated, it was appropriated to the use of men. Even women themselves had no thought for the claims of women; amongst all the educational foundations which have made the name of Margaret Beaufort famous, there is none for women. [Francis Aidan] Gasquet writes: "the destruction of these religious houses by Henry was the absolute extinction of any systematic education for women during a long period." The stimulating atmosphere of the renaissance period no doubt induced exceptional women with exceptional advantages to devote themselves to the new learning, but in the case of the mass of women, nothing but devotion to domestic duties was demanded. It was some time before any words were raised in protest, but we find [Thomas] Fuller, in the seventeenth century, writing in his "Church History," "They were good she schools, wherein the girls and maids of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work, and sometimes a little Latin was taught them therein. Yea, give me leave to say, if such feminine foundations had still continued, provided no vow were obtruded upon them, haply the weaker sex, besides the avoiding modern inconveniences, might be heightened to a higher perfection than hitherto hath been attained." But, alas for the weaker sex, and perhaps for the stronger too, at the great social revolution which we call the Reformation, the world decided that devotion to domestic duties was all that should be asked of women; strange that it should have been so when the policy of women was shaping the future course and development of England. As a result, few educational foundations were left for women, and we of the nineteenth century, who believe with the gentle Fuller that "that weaker sex might be heightened to a higher perfection that hitherto hath been attained," must struggle, and fight, and beg, to get our share in the educational advantages so liberally bestowed upon the other sex. And we must struggle, too, against the old prejudice that devotion to domestic duties is all that need be asked of women. We may still ask with Sidney Smith, "Can anything be more perfectly absurd than to suppose that the care and perpetual solicitude which a mother feels for her children depends upon her ignorance of Greek and mathematics, and that she would desert an infant for a quadratic equation?" Sidney Smith claims better education for women mainly because it will contribute to their private happiness. I wish to claim it because it will make them more useful members of the family by giving them a higher ideal of their home duties.
At present we find, as a rule, that the mother of the family has struggled without assistance through the most arduous period of the family life. She has brought her children into the world, cared for them during their childish illnesses, clothed them when they were too young to do anything to their clothes but tear them; at last she has one or more grown-up daughters. There is no more, but rather less work to be done for the family, and yet the first duty of the daughters is said to be to help their mothers--what in? in arranging flowers, writing notes, paying calls. These occupations may be interrupted with the approval of everybody if there is a tennis party, a bicycling expedition, a game of golf; but if the grown-up daughter wishes to shut herself up in her own room and study Greek for two hours daily, she will, as a rule, be considered selfish. In the first place, the question will be asked, what is the good of it? People feel, if they do not say, that games and bicycling may lead to acquaintances which may ripen into marriage, but young men will be frightened away by a girl who is known to study Greek, or the higher mathematics--what can be the use of them? We cannot, in all cases, point to any distinct utility likely to result immediately from devotion to study. But if we can do nothing else, we can point to the result on character. That thoughtful woman, Lucy Smith, wife of the author of "Thorndale," writing in 1869, says: "the better trained women of the future will have their sorrows, but half the misery our generation goes through is lack of pursuit, unfitness for any because of the defective mental training we have had." [The Story of William and Lucy Smith pg. 379] And again, "One has dark moods of questioning the use of it all, but, immaterial as it may seem, if we fix our eyes upon the great sum of human effort, yet the universal being made up of the particular, it does matter that individuals should be as healthily developed as possible, that they may radiate healthy influence; and, therefore, it is good to have a pursuit, even if we do not attain excellence." [pg. 468] Now, is not this just exactly what the women in the home circle should do--radiate healthy influence? If they are to do it, they must be using all their powers, developing their whole nature, leading a life of effort in order that they may lead a life of service.
But if the daughter at home can get time for her studies only by constant opposition to the small desires of the other members of the family, the loss to her character will probably be greater than the gain. The home people will consider her selfish, the outside world will call her peculiar, and fighting for what is obviously, in the first place at least, only for her own pleasure will harden her, and make her self-assertive and aggressive. It is her mother who should help her and make things easy for her. Mothers must recognise that, pleasant though it is to have their daughters as companions to help them in the small duties of life, yet the daughters have their own lives to live, and that, if they are to be useful women in the future, opportunity must be given them to develop their powers. They must respect their daughters' occupations, and encourage them to use their days wisely. This is much easier in theory than in practice, and especially so because but few mothers have themselves enjoyed the same educational advantages as their daughters. It is not common to find middle-aged women who read or study seriously; they have too often neglected their own intellectual gifts and acquired habits of frittering away their time in a ceaseless round of small occupations, deceiving themselves with the idea that they are very busy, because they have never learnt to use their time well. It is difficult for those who have never known what serious study means to encourage their daughters in habits of study, and to sympathise with them in their pursuits. Yet mothers have been able to do so at all times for their sons, and could equally do it for their daughters if they felt it desirable. Yet it would be well that all those who try to give their children a much better education than they themselves enjoyed, and are anxious that they should avail themselves of those scholarships which put the highest education within the reach of all, should count the cost beforehand. To fit a girl by education for a far wider sphere, and then expect her to be content in a home where intellectual interests are little considered, is not fair. As a consequence of the education, a certain amount of liberty to order her own life should be granted also, and the difference of interests and occupations, which will result from the difference of education, will make a large call on sympathy and forbearance on all sides. If parents are not prepared to give the subsequent liberty, if they are exacting in the demands and wish their daughters to be content with home interests alone, they had better pause before they give them a very much better education than they themselves enjoyed. Education is not an end in itself, it is but a means to enable us to live our lives more fully and more usefully. Again and again we hear it said, "At least I will give my children a good education at any sacrifice." Yes, but what afterwards? For the boys, of course, a profession, some serious work for life; but for the girls, what is to follow? Some have to earn their own livelihood, and with these we are hardly concerned at present, but why should the others who want to do some real work find it so difficult to do it at home, that they are led to seek some occupation away from home, just as in old days when women wished to lead serious lives they entered convents. Then there was reason for it, but now that we live in settled times, is there any reason why the home life and serious work may not be combined? In such towns as Liverpool it is possible for girls and women to pursue Higher Education whilst living at home. This method of study Professor [Alfred] Marshall, in speaking of similar arrangements at Bristol, pronounces as "almost perfect within its limits." He speaks of the women students as giving, "as a rule, half their time to study and half to domestic occupations," and as often doing "excellent work," whilst being free from "that strain and stress which comes from working against time for examinations." Still, their work can only be excellent if their studies and stress of working amidst countless unnecessary interruptions may be greater even than the strain and stress of working against time for examinations. But the difficulties of home study are not unsurmountable, whilst its advantages are obvious. What is needed is that the mother should have a sense of the value of time, so that she may strive to get necessary domestic work done as quickly as possible; that she should discern what duties are important, what claims she may fairly make upon her daughter, and what contingencies justify her in interrupting her studies. This will be easy if the mother understands the value of serious work for herself. If she is anxious to get through her domestic duties as quickly as possible, even whilst she is eager to fulfil them thoroughly and well; if she tries not to fritter away her time in petty occupations, she will not waste her daughter's time, and will gladly giver her liberty to develop her individual character.
I do not for a moment undervalue the home duties. It is just because I value home life so highly that I wish that our best girls should find freedom to live their own lives at home. To share the general interests of the home circle, whilst they pursue some work of their own, will prevent them from growing narrow and one-sided. To bear part of the home burden, to try and brighten their parents' lives and be real friends to their brothers and sisters, to be responsible for some of the small, tiresome home duties, will keep them from growing selfish, intense, wanting in consideration for others. Surely together, each with their own work in life, and yet each giving much of their best energies, of their most serious thoughts to brighten and help the lives of the other members of the family, and all gladly subduing the expression of a too luxuriant individuality in submission to the wishes of the rest, and especially of the heads of the family.
I have spoken of the mother's responsibility in ordering the home life so that there may be opportunity for free development for each member of the family, but if she is sometimes not ready enough to make this opportunity, daughters are often rather too ready to assert their rights and claim it. [Giuseppe] Mazzini said with truth [An Essay On the Duties of Man, 1844] that people should talk less about their rights and think more about their duties, and the self-assertive young woman of the present day might lay this lesson to heart. Any struggle with others, even for an obvious good, is fraught with serious dangers to the character, and specially if it be with those who are nearest and dearest. Liberty to live your own life is dearly won if it be bought at the price of constant friction, repeated refusals of help and sympathy, even in matters which we judge unimportant and trifling, and selfish isolation from the rest of the family. The interruptions of home life are trying, but it is useful to learn, as early as possible, to work in spite of them, for few can ever hope that life will be without constant interruptions. A woman should wish to be always available, even though it may not be right for others to abuse her willingness to help. Study may be good, but love and kindliness and sympathy are better. If a girl claims some part of the day as her own, she must justify her claim, not only by the use she makes of that part, but by her increased desire to be helpful to others during the rest of the day. Remember how true it is that if we are conventional in small things, we can do as we like in big things, and so those who are kindly and bright and sympathetic in their intercourse with others, will find it much easier to gain, with the approval of others, the right to the control of some portion of their time. It is not easy for women at present, whilst living an ordinary home life, to get much time for themselves, just because everyone is engaged in helping others to waste their time in a round of fussy activity. Those who are trying to be different to their neighbours should be very specially careful not to fail in real kindliness and sympathy. If a girl finds it difficult to get time for study at home, let her neglect none of her obvious home duties, and at the same time show her readiness to give up her own convenience, comfort and pleasures, to get time for her study. In proportion as her home people see that she is really in earnest about her pursuits, that they are not a mere whim, they will respect them and make it easier for her to find time for them. But girls demand so much. I remember talking to a student who had distinguished herself much at college, and found subsequent study at home difficult if not impossible, and, after she had retailed her supposed difficulties, I could not help saying that it seemed to me that what she demanded was, that when she studied, the family circle should stand around and sympathise with and admire the remarkable spectacle. Girls miss the intellectual stimulus of college and the companionship of fellow students, and then complain of the want of sympathy at home, where others have their own lives to live and their own work to do, and would, perhaps, like a little sympathy themselves. It is difficult for any young person to settle down to the serious work of life after the delights of the years spent at school and college. The battle has often to be fought by young men in lonely lodgings, amidst hard and, perhaps at first, uncongenial work. Girls need not grumble if they have to fight it out at home, where it takes a very different shape for them than it does for their brothers. In all cases, it is far more a battle with ourselves, with our own desire for self-pleasing, than with any outward circumstances, and upon the way in which we win it will depend our chances of usefulness in the world.
But when, as is so often the case in the middle and upper classes, girls are practically given freedom to control their own lives, do they sufficiently feel the responsibility, we may almost say the burden, of this liberty? It is easier far to lead worthily a life where each day has its appointed task, and where we have to obey the commands of others, than it is to order our own lives. Here comes the real difficulty for so many women. They have to find their serious pursuits for themselves, to make their own lives. The present tendency amongst girls is far too much to make a business of their pleasures, especially of their games and outdoor amusements; these are, no doubt, most useful and beneficial as recreation, but cannot in themselves be considered either as an occupation, or as a training for life. Those girls, who love study and pursue it at home, can have a most useful influence on others by showing both the added interest that study gives to their lives, and the fact that habits of serious work make them neither less desirable as companions, nor less capable of enjoying recreation. But the practical person will ask of what use is all this study, this higher education, what will it lead to? This question we have already in part answered by showing how real intellectual work keeps the mind healthy. The mind needs exercise as well as the body. More than this, we can never tell what good results may follow from any study seriously pursued. Students, observers of phenomena of every kind, both in the world of nature and of society, are much needed, and earnest students, however humble, may do their part in adding to the sum total of human knowledge. Of this nature there is much that might be done, either under direction or independently, by the women who have been trained at college. Is it fanciful to imagine that we might have scattered over the length and breadth of the land women who, freed from the obligation of earning their own livelihood and living peacefully at home, were pursuing serious lines of investigation in scientific, literary, social, or historical questions. Surely there is nothing to make this impossible, or even difficult, except that society does not expect women to lead such lives, and therefore does not make it easy for them.
Apart from these which would always be exceptional cases, serious study--study, that is, that demands effort, the use of all the powers of the mind--gives exactness, quickness, thoroughness, mental alertness, judgment, qualities which will be useful in any walk of life. Few, either amongst men or women, make study the real business of their lives, and women who do not marry will probably in time find some other occupation in life. But whether they become sick nurses or guardians of the poor, or whatever occupation they may choose, the habits of mind, which study has taught them, and the increased interests they have gained will be useful. In the philanthropic work so largely undertaken by women at the present day, the advantages of a trained mind, of habits of work are at once seen; and if more of the philanthropic workers were at the same time students of sociology, our efforts to benefit mankind might be attended with more fruit.
One objection to the higher education of women remains to be considered; it is commonly suppose to make it less likely for women to get married. How far this is true it is not easy to decide; it is clear that amongst the middle and upper classes, women, as a rule, do not marry so young as they used, and that many never marry at all. For this, many causes may be suggested. As far as women students are concerned, the statistics collected by Mrs. Sidgwick in 1890, show that the students who up till then had been at college, ten per cent. had got married as against nineteen per cent. of the sisters; but she points out with truth that the comparison is not altogether fair, as the students must be a selected class, selected as being unmarried up to the time of their leaving college, at whatever age this may occur. But it is of course true that education will make a woman more difficult to please in the choice of a husband, since she will cease to regard her marriage as the only course open to her. Her sphere of choice will therefore be limited, and moreover she will have learnt in her student days the delights of intellectual companionship, and this companionship she can obtain much more easily from women than from men, since, unfortunately, our social prejudices make anything like intellectual companionship between the sexes before marriage very difficult. An educated woman is therefore very given to prefer the companionship of her own sex, and men, especially young men, to put down girls as quite incapable of sharing their more serious interests. This is not to the advantage of either sex, and it is much to be wished that our social arrangements permitted freer intercourse between the sexes. A woman, whose life is full of interests, is not likely to desire marriage unless she is very sure of finding a real companion in her husband; for the sake of securing a home of her own, she will not run the risk of marrying a man with whom she is but imperfectly acquainted. Generally those only are attractive who desire either consciously or unconsciously to please, and the women who are not specially interested in men will fail to be attractive to men, because they have no particular desire to please them. Again, a well educated woman will certainly, should she wish to marry, wish for a well educated husband, and this also will limit her choice. As an old writer in the Saturday Review said, "When one hears people declaim about the folly of women, it is worth while to remember that there are men, too, whose folly is unfathomable . . . So if a woman were not brought up a fool, what fellowship could she have with them? . . . We cannot so much wonder that, after all that, mothers, with daughters whom they are anxious to settle, should shudder at the perils in which knowledge or brightness of mind, or vigour of any sort would surely involve the fair candidates for the crown of marriage." Men, on the other hand, as a rule do not seem very afraid of marrying somewhat foolish women. It is difficult to decide what influences a man in the choice of a wife, and, on the whole, it would be safe to say that choice has very little to do in the matter. Chance decides it, he is in a mood to fall in love, he meets someone who is in perhaps a similar mood and whose personality is attractive to him and the thing is done. It is the most momentous step a man can take in life, and to a certain extent it is fair to judge a man's character by the wife he has chosen; yet reason has little to do with the matter, except in so far as a man has learnt to allow his reason to exercise some controlling restraint over his emotions. I mean that reason may keep a man from proposing to a fascinating woman of whom he disapproves, but it does not necessarily lead him to choose or even desire a wife, who may be his intellectual companion. Indeed, it is not quite easy to say what a man does want in his wife. It would certainly not always be desirable for a wife to share her husband's special pursuits. It is easy to understand that a man may wish to get away from his work and find a change of ideas in conversing with his wife, when he does not regard her with [Edward] Casauban, as "the domestic troubler of my peace." [Middlemarch, George Eliot]
Yet probably no married life is so complete in its happiness as that where there is perfect intellectual companionship as well as perfect sympathy of character. Such cases are comparatively rare, but no one who has had opportunity to observe them can fail to be struck with the increased possibilities of the usefulness, as well as of happiness they provide in work and interests and duties shared. It must be seldom, however, that husband and wife can have the same pursuits, yet there is no need why their minds should not more frequently be of the same intellectual caliber, why the wife should not have interests and work of her own, as well as the husband. It cannot be good for a man, and if not good it cannot be for his best happiness, to live in close intercourse with one whom he considers his intellectual inferior, incapable of sharing his highest interests, who moulds her opinions on his and accepts his word as law with regard to all the higher matters of life, however much she may dispute it about the details of domestic life, and whose life is absolutely absorbed in his. People often say now-a-days that the best women remain unmarried; we hope that this may not always be so, even if it is to some extent true at present, and that the best men, as well as the best women, may discover how much their possibilities of happiness as well as of usefulness are increased by companionship with one another.
It is quite needless to fear that a highly educated woman will neglect her household duties; rather a well-trained mind will enable her to do them both more exactly and quickly, and therefore with a great saving in friction to all concerned. Nor is there any reason to fear that she will cease to be womanly because she becomes learned. No one could be more womanly than Mrs. Somerville was, and in her day, intellectual eminence made a woman much more remarkable than it would now. We have only to recall women who have come before the public in ways which our grandparents and even our parents, would have thought absolutely destructive of all true womanliness, to see that no womanly charm, except perhaps that of helplessness, is wanting in them. There are what are called unwomanly women, but they belong to no particular class, and are produced by no one system, least of all by education.
I have tried to show that a highly educated woman is desirable as a wife; few surely will deny that she is desirable as a mother. This generation seems to be realising more fully than ever was realised before, the tremendous responsibility of the mother, and surely it is of vital importance that all her powers should be full developed, that she should be in every way the best that she is capable of becoming. How often we see that imperfect education leaves the intellectual interests of a woman so feeble, that they perish altogether during the early years of married life, when her time perhaps is much absorbed by babies. She may attempt to teach her children to read, but she soon acknowledges that the boys and girls at school are far beyond her intellectual attainments, and she is hardly capable of even taking a sympathetic interest in their studies. How different her relation with them might have been, what new chances for close friendship between mother and grown up children would arise, if she could at all time sympathize intellectually with them and frequently guide and direct their studies. Of course, in many cases she would be able to assist actively in their education, even if she did not undertake it altogether. It is chiefly the mother who makes the atmosphere of the home, who controls or might control the family conversation, whose ideals fix the standard of the family aspirations; how important, then, that she should have a mind conversant with great ideas, that she should live intellectually in a wide and noble world. To her come manifold calls; she must be the companion, the support of her husband, the guide, the source of inspiration to her children, the centre probably of some small social circle, the friend as well as the mistress of her servants, the dispenser of charity amongst her poorer neighbours. To meet all these claims, what education or training can be too much? The professional woman has to fit herself for the work of her profession, but the wife and mother, the mistress of a household, can see no limit to her beneficent activities. To fit her for so wide a sphere, no education can be too high, she needs not the higher only but the highest, and she needs, above all, to continue her education through life. Of course, people will say, where is the time for reading and study to come from in a married woman's life? I believe that she can make time for it if she will and strenuously desires it. To begin with, she is not often half as busy as she imagines. With a better sense of proportion, she would discover that, to many of her occupations, she can devote less time, and that others may very well be neglected altogether. The great lesson that she has to learn is how to arrange her time, how to make use of odd moments, how to concentrate herself on the task of the moment. There will, no doubt, be periods in her life when she will have little if any time for herself; but if only she can keep up through such periods some thread, however slight, of serious study, when more leisured days come, the habit of work will not be lost, and she will be able to return to it again. The great thing is that she should seriously desire time for study; if she does, she will find it. And she need not fear that time thus spent is spent selfishly, if for it she neglects no real call; anything that will make her a more complete human being, will make her also a more helpful and stimulating companion to her husband and children. She is not doing the best she can for them, if she sacrifice her own character, her own individuality to them; let her take the trouble to be something herself. The difficulty lies in the nice balance of duties, often seemingly antagonistic in the choice to be made between conflicting claims, and here one thing only can keep us straight, the over-ruling desire to lead a life of service.
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