The Curse of Education

world. They keep up a beautiful kind of masculine myth about the mastery of the sterner sex

mental machinery from time immemorial. The truth is that women think out things for themselves a great deal more than does the average man. As, however, they concentrate their attention for the mos

fy the fact beyond dispute. But we are dealing here with existing circumstances, not with potentialities. Therefore I have no hesitation in saying that, as a general rule, women use w

s made only in the interests of truth, and it

ntil recently, women have not been subjected to this agreeable process. For a very long time they were not educated at all, and when governesses first came into fashio

eges are frequented by girls of the upper and middle classes, chiefly the latter, and no doubt they are gradually working a revolution in feminine character. But heredity-especially when it is, within a generation or so, the hered

, for the most part about the commonplace incidents of their daily life, and possibly they are given too much to morbid introspection. But anything that serves to make a human being exercise the function for which his brain was originally intended should be regarded with thankfulness. It is a thousand t

way that they are able to gain an ascendancy over man that is the more potent because it is unobtrusive. The average woman sees things the

up in percentages, or absorbed in grand schemes for the regeneration of mankind. The plain truth is that he does not possess the faculty of applying his intelligence to everything within his range of obs

ted. Some people maintain that this empire is gained solely by physical attraction; but this contention is disproved easily enough. All women do not possess the charm o

some time ago, I made the acquaintance of a hard-headed Lancashire merchant who had amassed a comfortable independence. In an outburst of confidence he told me one day that he

th the person or persons with whom the dealings are taking place; and he has his experience to fall back upon. But somehow or other the wife seems to grasp all the points, and to see more clearly into the motives of the person concerned. 'Why,' she will ex

Yet these are the individuals who have been subjected to the highest form of what is called mental training. If fact-cramming and mental gymnastics are the best developers of the human mind, these men ought to be perfect models of intelligence. But will any candid-minded person cal

our social existence. Man may have a very broad horizon; but the broader it becomes, the further he seems to be transported from the capacity to exercise the normal functions of the brain. To designate t

apply severe educational methods, than anything else, that has permitted the negative development of her thinking faculties; and this te

ire over the opposite sex. That this should be generally appreciated is of the utmost importance, because the modern metamorphosis of woman, if rightly understood, is the best conceivable object-lesson in the evils brought about by the educational

the expense of forfeiting their admiration and thereby losing her vantage-ground. Spectacles do not enter into the matter

matters which go to make up the sum of human life. Their minds will no longer develop these powers when they are systematically subjected to a process of education which has

edominant influence for the good of mankind. Striking exceptions might easily be adduced from history; but, on the whole, it must be acknowledged that woman has seldom a

eir more delicate organization, will suffer proportionately in a greater degree. Physical training, of course, obviates a great deal of this evil. But the same thing is bound to happen in the case of girls as has already been experienced where boys are concerned; that is to say, the most prom

ten far too definite, and have been formed in too great haste. So rapid is this operation of thought that it often becomes a mere intuition. Yet the remarkabl

ith developing it. Hence woman's powers of thought and observation are embryonic rather than matured. The work they perform is not a tithe of what would be accomplished by them under the auspices of judicious encouragement an

d's progress would be enormously increased. Who first started the notion that man is being manufactured into a superior article, and that woman cannot do better than submit herself with all haste to the same process, I do not know. A

ons, have been enabled to preserve mental faculties that no amount of cramming and corporal punishment has ever succeeded in awakening in man. They would then cease from their ign