Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/812

 so to speak, of refinement, and that, as a result, we should tend to impair the delicate growth of that which we all recognize as of paramount value in education—good breeding. I can only say I am fully persuaded, by the results I have seen, that such would not be the case. The feelings and the manners of a lady are imparted by inheritance and by the society in which she lives, and no amount of drilling by schoolmistresses will produce more than an artificial imitation of the natural reality. Therefore, once let a girls' school be a little society of little ladies, and we need never fear that active play, natural to their age and essential to their health, will make them less ladylike than does the stiff restraint of the present system. Rather would active play, during the years of bodily growth, by developing the coördinated use of all the muscles, tend to impart through after-life that grace of easy movement which we all admire, but the secret of which is truly revealed only to the children of nature.

So much, then, for bodily recreation in girls' schools. As regards their mental recreation, I should begin by recommending less mental work. In most of the higher-class girls' schools, as in boys' schools, a great deal more work is required than it is either judicious or desirable to require. The root of this evil is that a girl's education is usually made to terminate at the age of seventeen or eighteen, and, as a consequence, she is expected to gain during these early years of life a sufficient amount of book-learning to serve for the rest of her days. In many cases it is, no doubt, unavoidable that a girl's education should end when she leaves school; but I think that, in all cases, education ought to be less arduous than it is in many of our girls' schools. Even if education is to end with school-life, it is better that it should end with a little knowledge thoroughly acquired, than with a confused and half-forgotten medley of many subjects. Not that I advocate specialty and depth of knowledge for girls. On the contrary, I think that the aim here ought rather to be that of generality and width—languages, elementary mathematics, geography, history, art, science, and English literature being all taught, but taught superficially, or without much detail, and in as entertaining a manner as possible. The point, however, which I desire chiefly to insist upon is this, that schoolgirls ought not to be made or encouraged to work beyond their strength. In most girls' schools competition runs very high; and I am quite sure that in very many cases the aim of the schoolmistress ought to be to check its undue severity, rather than to stimulate that severity by competitive examinations. I have myself known many cases of girls sitting up late, rising early, and working all day to win their coveted prizes—a state of things which is a sufficiently crying evil even in boys' schools, but which is a still worse evil in girls—worse because the physique of a girl is usually less robust than that of a boy, and because the schoolgirl is doomed to a smaller amount of outdoor exercise.