work is not arduous and is generally “rushed through” in the last week of the holidays, it adds a heavy burden to the already long educational bill. The tendency is to send boys to school as early as possible, so that the total cost of this education is a very expensive luxury; but a hard struggle is always made, even by parents who are comparatively poor, to give boys a public-school training. The standard of education and the average results are undoubtedly higher than heretofore, but it is a question whether by our system we get the most out of our best boys.
The early training of girls from the nursery to the school-room is carried on generally with their brothers, the same governess supervising them all. The spirit of emulation which a mixed class of pupils creates is on the whole good. It stimulates the girls to greater effort and acts as a spur to the boys, who realize the indignity of being beaten by their sisters.
A much more radical change has taken place in the education of girls than in that of boys. The whole curriculum of girls’ study has been enlarged and the adoption of the more serious side is now a sine quâ non in all families of whatever rank. The training begins in the nursery and little girls go into the school-room at about the same age as their brothers. The subjects they learn are generally the same, for a knowledge of Latin and advanced arithmetic, as well as mathematics, is now considered essential for well-educated girls. The standard lesson books are of great variety and the method of explaining and teaching is carried out as much as possible by illustration and practical demonstration. The new methods of teaching reading are not adopted in the school-rooms of which I speak, as a girl has probably mastered the elements of reading before she leaves the nursery. The tendency of modern education is to concentrate a girl’s energies on those subjects for which she has a distinct vocation. In these days no one wastes time on teaching music or singing to a child who has no inclination or ear for it, and drawing is taught only to one who shows a distinctly artistic talent. Much more time is now given to the study of languages and every girl can speak French, and many German, while a large number take up other languages. Girls are now allowed a much wider range of literature than formerly. The foreign classics are open to them and the days are past when they were forbidden to read Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot. In fact, in this endless supply of subjects the instructor is called upon to guide the pupil into some systematized course so as to avoid the dangers of desultory reading.
There is and always has been in England a deep-rooted objection to sending girls to boarding-school, hence the need of a highly trained and accomplished governess.[1] The supply is very good and large and the governess in an English family, whether she be foreign or English, is usually remarkable in attainments and character. In spite of contrary assertions, English mothers are most anxious and careful as to the person who must, see more of their children than any one else. Indeed, in many cases English mothers are so anxious about the education and ambitious for the success of their children that I think the pressure put on them to learn is sometimes excessive. There is no more “willing horse” than a keen, intelligent girl, and her inclination is always rather to do too much than too little. The strain of education comes at a moment when her health may be affected by the changes incident to her sex, and she probably requires all her strength to carry her over a period during which, from a physical point of view, she should take her life a little more easily.
We show more consideration in our treatment of animals than in our treatment of our girls and boys. We do not expect our yearlings or two-year-olds to perform any very arduous work during the early part of their life: what work they are called on to carry out is done slowly, with distinct periods of rest, and is very carefully subdivided in its amount and duration; but we ask of young people, boys and girls, at a period when they are growing and their constitutions are forming, to carry out a system of education which no one can characterize as easy. In the case of boys, the drawbacks are modified by the distinctly male instinct not to
- ↑ The reader is reminded that Lady St. Helier is discussing her subject from the point of view of the aristocracy and not of the upper middle classes.
