Page:Special Systems of Education for Women.djvu/1

THE

JUNE, 1868. SPECIAL SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION FOR WOMEN.

By.

the controversies to which the movement for improving the education of women has given rise, there is one which presses for settlement. The question has arisen and must be answered—Is the improved education which, it is hoped, is about to be brought within reach of women, to be identical with that of men, or is it to be as good as possible, but in some way or other specifically feminine? The form in which the question practically first presents itself is—What shall be the standards of examination? For though there are still a not inconsiderable number of places of so-called education, into which no examiners from without are allowed to penetrate, the persons by whom these establishments are kept up are pretty certain to disapprove of any change in the existing practice, and are not likely to be troubled with perplexing questions as to the direction in which the reforming tendency should work. The controversy may therefore be assumed to be between two parties, each equally accepting examinations as "valuable and indispensable things" alike for women and for men—each equally admitting that "their use is limited," and that they may be abused.

Of these two parties, one regards it as essential that the standards of examination for both sexes should be the same; the other holds that they may without harm—perhaps with advantage—be different. The controversy does not lie between those on the one hand who, believing men and women to be exactly alike, logically hold that all the conditions to which they may be subjected ought to be precisely similar, and those on the other who, regarding them as completely unlike, cannot believe