[8]
It will be seen that there is no underrating here of the capacities of
women. The courses are not limited merely to cooking and washing, though
these are most carefully gone into. It is a far cry from them to
psychology and ethics or "A Sketch of the Historical Development of the
Household in England." One can imagine the joy with which girls, largely
nourished on the husks which constitute most of the educational
curricula of boys, will turn to a series of lectures on Child
Psychology, that deal with the general course of mental development in
the child, with interest and attention, the processes of learning,
mental fatigue and adolescence. The highest capacities of the mind in
women are not ignored when we find included a course of which the
special text-book is Spencer's "Data of Ethics." One can imagine also
that the course on the elements of general economics, with its study of
wealth and value and price, the laws of production and distribution,
may bring into being a kind of housewife who, whether or not eligible
for Parliament, would certainly be a much more desirable member thereof
than nine-tenths of the prosperous gentlemen who daily record their
opinions there upon matters they know not of. All who care at all for
womanhood or for England must rejoice in the beginnings of this revised
version of higher education for women which, for once in a way, finds
London a pioneer.
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