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    ON THE EDUCATION OF PAUPER GIRLS. 323

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    The Education Of The Female Sex Is One O...

    Let us first endeavor to ascertain what kind of education should be given to pauper girls .

    "We use the term pauper girls because it is the common one to designate the class before us ; but we would wish to see it altered .

    Children ought never to be considered as paupers ; they have committed no act of their own which should degrade them . Children ;

    must always be dependent on others for their support ; nature assigns to the _jDarent the support of themsociety discharges to the

    , child a duty which the parent cannot , or does not , perform . All human beings in a free and Christian country should be regarded !

    as entering the world free and unstained hj any acts of others , —¦ all equal in the sight of the Creator . We must divest ourselves

    therefore of the idea that a child , because in a workhouse , is less entitled to care than the highest in the land . We are then now to

    consider how best to train young girls for whose education we are responsible , —young' girls who are to be fitted to maintain

    themselves honestly , and to take their proper place in society . Let us think of them simply as young girlsnot as pauper girls .

    Every girl should be so learned as , to be able to nil the duties of a home : whatever else may be superaddedthis is essential ; and the

    , requirements of a home are so varied , that to fulfil them well she must , in learning to discharge them , have learned what will enable her to

    turn her hand easily to varied branches of industry , should such be needful . The girl is especially adapted by nature for a home . The

    boy loves to roam—he delights in enterprise , in action ; though he generally treasures the love of his mother in a sacred recess of his

    heart , yet his affections are not bound up in his home—he does not pine for it ; though he may long to return to the scenes of his early

    sports , yet he longs still more to rove over the world . The girl is totally different . The affections have large sway over her whole

    being . Nature has given her varied scope for them in the true home . She is the object of the tender love of the parents , and of her

    brothers and sisters , and love is constantly awakened and called out by her position in the family . She has the babies to fondle and

    nurse like a little mother herself ; she has a thousand household cares to attend to , and learns cooking practically while she helps to

    get her father ' s dinner ; and if the eldest girl feels herself a very imporand tant hel learning p in the needlework house , after and going enoug regularl h of y reading to a good 1 writing day-school and ,

    , , arithmetic for all common purposes , she is prepared at fourteen to take her humble position in life as a little servant , or Iier mother ' s

    helper and right hand , and to fill it with credit . A real good home is Infinitely better than any school for the education of girls—even a

    , second-rate or a third-rate one is preferable . There her true nature Is developed , and unless she is thus prepared to fill its duties well

    in after life , all other teaching is comparatively useless . Nowthough it is impossible for us by any artificial contrivances

    or ingenious , mechanism to equal , still less to surpass , the training

    a a 2

    On The Education Of Pauper Girls. 323

    ON THE EDUCATION OF PAUPER GIRLS . 323

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1862, page 323, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071862/page/35/