Page:The Higher Education of Women.djvu/157

 other cause, imposes upon parents what they feel to be a sort of moral and social obligation to keep their daughters idle.

In addition to other hindrances in the way of giving a thorough education to girls, there is one which presses heavily on persons of narrow incomes—namely, its costliness as compared with that of boys. This is a fact, notwithstanding the other fact, that the teachers of girls are, as a rule, much worse paid than the teachers of boys. It is traceable to two causes—the absence of endowments, and the smallness of girls' schools. Both these causes are removable.

With regard to endowments, there is reason to believe that a large proportion of those which are now appropriated to