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    218 ON THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS,

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    «. The It Is Female Encouraging Tion 1 T...

    mount difficulties which , are not unlikely to prove fatal to those who start unprovided with , this support .

    Now what should we say to a parent who on sending his two children out on a voyage took pains to furnish the stronger with

    every necessary , but left the weaker comparatively uncared for ? Shmild we not say that such conduct was cruel and unnatural ? Yet

    it is what we ourselves are guilty of every day—for the public must be considered collectively as the parent of the rising generation , and

    everywhere do we see signs of the pains taken to prepare boys by education to pass happily and honorably through their lives , while

    the attention and forethought which are bestowed on their sisters ' future well-being are comparatively of a trifling description . But

    perhaps it will be said that women do not require so much preparation as menbecause they will marry , and will thus be relieved

    from the _bLirden , of supporting themselves . To a certain extent this is . trueyet it is a question whether married women , have not

    , serious difficulties of another kind actually thrown in their way hy the inferiority of the education they receive . To place a woman on

    a much lower , intellectual level than her husband cannot tend to make her position an easier one or to increase her chances of

    domestic happiness . Her troubles may not be those of a breadwinneryet they may be very painful and make her life a miserable

    , one . "Without dwelling further on this point , however , I must observe that the argument here used does not apply to one-third of

    the women of Great Britain , for out of six millions of tlie weaker sextwo earn their bread as single women . How many more

    unmarried , there may be who are supported by provision left them by their parents I cannot tell , neither does it affect the case ; but it is

    a fact recorded in the last census , that out of every three women existing in this land , one is now not only walking alone through

    the journey of life , but providing for herself by the way . One out of every three of the young girls we bring up will have to fight

    taug the great htuntr battl ained e for and bread most . At insufficientl present they y prep enter ared . on Is the it contest surprising ill-

    that m , any fail to , win their daily bread ? Is it wonderful that every employment suitable to ill-instructed persons should be

    overcrowded with female applicants praying for work , and beating down each other ' s wages by competition to starvation point - ? Need

    we marvel that our workhouses should be encumbered with ablebodied women ? Is it not rather the natural result of the system

    pursued ? It was stated at the public meeting of the refuges iii London , that

    throug numbers h the of women streets without of unblemished the mean character s of procuring wander 1 shelter every or ni food ght ,

    resting On door-steps or sleeping under archways . And this state of things must continueand indeed cannot fail to grow worse and

    , worse , unless far greater efforts are made to prevent it than are now

    in action or even in contemplation .

    218 On The Education Of Girls,

    218 ON THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS ,

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1860, page 218, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121860/page/2/