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    WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR FUTURE POSITION....

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

    Any attempt to enter on the whole subject , and show how the condition of these two millions of working * women might be improved ,

    would far exceed my powers or the limits of this paper ; I shall therefore confine myself to one branch , and will endeavor to point

    out the deficiencies in the education given to girls belonging- to the middle classes and the evil consequences which this deficiency entails

    on them in after life . It would be curious and instructive to mark the difference between

    the numbers of endowed middle-class schools for boys and those for girls all over the kingdomand I regret that I have been unable to

    , procure such an account . In one small district however I have been able to obtain this information , and it must serve as a specimen of

    the whole . I find in a history published in the year 1828 , of that part of

    Lincolnshire which is called Lindsey , and consists of about one-half of the county , that it contains ten endowed grammar or middle-class

    schools for boys ; some of which are free , and all very cheap , and are made use offor their sonsby tradesmen and farmers , and even

    occasionally by the , clergy and pr , ofessional men ; but for girls of the same rank there is no endowed school at all . Besides these , there are for

    the laboring" class several partly endowed schools for boys , and a few mixed onesbut for the daughters of the middle class there is

    , no educational provision whatever , though so much has been done for their brothers . I do not select this particular district because

    it is especially favorable to my views , but merely because I could here find the information which I could not readily obtain elsewhere ,

    and I am not aware that it is at all different from the rest of England . It is _jDrobable that when the greater part of these schools

    were founded , two or three centuries ago , there were very few single women of this class who had to provide for themselves , therefore the

    _ediication of the girls was of comparatively little importance , and of course I do not suggest or desire that any alteration should be made

    in the state of these existing schools , I only wish to point out that any future endowments ought to be for girls' schools , and that any .

    money which may hereafter fall into the Court of Chancery or the hands of the Charity Commissioners ought in fairness to be expended ,

    not for the benefit of boys , who are more than tolerably well provided for alreadybut for the girlsfor whom no provision at all exists ,

    and who have , no means of , education within their reach , except such as are offered in private schoolswhere the instruction is

    neces-, sarily expensive and which have not the advantage enjoyed by endowed establishments of being supervised by educated persons of

    station . The efficiency of the education given in these private schools may

    be ascertained by any one who will take the trouble of questioning a pupil from " a seminary for young ladies / ' But he must not only

    inquire what the course of study has been , he must also ascertain whether the _ptipil has really learnt any one of the things professed

    _d 2

    With Reference To Their Future Position....

    WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR FUTURE POSITION . 219

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1860, page 219, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121860/page/3/