Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/425

Rh fact. Drawing up a plan of culture specifically for a sex, nay, for "the sex," the all-controlling element of sex and its vital implications are passed by as if they had no existence. Dr. Dix has prepared a programme of feminine collegiate study in which there is no more recognition of the claims of the home as an object of cultivated thought than there is in the curriculums of colleges exclusively for men. He proposes a course of training which will preoccupy woman for at least a dozen of her most impressible years with a range of acquisitions that have no definite or distinct relation to home interests, and in which the "certificated" young lady can come out as proficiently ignorant of all these matters as the "graduated" young gentleman. His programme, which embraces nine groups of subjects to occupy four college years, and involves an elaborate preparation for entrance, has not even a corner for physiology, not to speak of other subjects which should be fundamental in any rational system of higher female education.

The satirical writer on education must have had Dr. Dix's plan in view in penning the following well-known passage: "If by some strange chance not a vestige of us descended to the remote future save a pile of our school-books or some college examination-papers, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be in finding in them no indication that the learners were ever likely to be parents. 'This must have been the curriculum for their celibates,' we may fancy him concluding.' I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things, especially for reading the books of extinct nations and of co-existing nations (from which, indeed, it seems clear that these people had very little worth reading in their own tongue); but I find no reference whatever to the bringing up of children. They could not have been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was the school course of one of their monastic orders.'"

all the world has been abundantly apprised of the fact, yet there is pleasure in still repeating that the opening of the new and splendid bridge over the East River, connecting the cities of Brooklyn and New York, on the 24th of May, was a most successful affair. The grand structure, a monument alike of the marvelous progress of science and art, of constructive genius, and of business enterprise, was recognized by all as a credit to the generation, and the impulse was spontaneous and universal to join in the tributes of honor to the founders and promoters of the enterprise, living and dead, on the occasion of the completion of the work. Business was therefore widely suspended in the two cities; the day of opening became a holiday, and countless thousands of the people gathered to witness the impressive ceremonies, and to express the enthusiastic gratification that filled all minds at the triumphant event. The ceremonies were appropriate and imposing. Parades and salutes, festivities and fire-works, and all the demonstrative accompaniments of high satisfaction, made the day and night memorable among popular celebrations. The oratorical garnishing was, of course, profuse, varied, and excellent, for the theme was well calculated to bring out eloquence of utterance. But the address of Hon. A. S. Hewitt was perhaps the most felicitous