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WHEREIN SHOULD THE EDUCATION OF A WOMAN DIFFER FROM THAT OF A MAN

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com1

Wherein Should the Education of aWoman Differ from That of a Man

By Kate GordonGet any book for free on:www.Abika.com

WHEREIN SHOULD THE EDUCATION OF A WOMAN DIFFER FROM THAT OF A MAN

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com2

Classics in the History of Psychology

An internet resource developed by

Christopher D. Green

(http://www.yorku.ca/dept/psych/classics/author.htm

)

York University, Toronto, Ontario

ISSN 1492-3173

Wherein Should the Education of a Woman Differ fromThat of a Man

Kate Gordon (1905)

Mount Holyoke CollegeFirst published in

School Review

, 789-794.

Posted August 2000

Members of the New England Association: It is my privilege to speak to you upon thesubject: "Wherein should the education of a woman differ from that of a man? Whatchanges in school and college does this involve?" The question of woman's education isseductively close to the question of woman's "sphere." I hold it to be almost atransgression even to mention woman's sphere -- the word recalls so many painful andimpertinent deliverances, so much of futile discussion about it -- and yet the willingnessto dogmatize about woman in general is so common an infirmity that I am emboldened toerr. Let us ask, then: "What is a woman's business, and what is the best way to train herfor it?"Certain theories recently advocated remind one of the London cab-driver whom agentleman engaged to take him to the station. The driver set off at a furious rate in theopposite direction, and when his passenger called out, "Cabby, cabby, you're going in thewrong direction," he answered: "Ah, but see what a beautiful pace I'm giving you!" In myopinion. President Stanley Hall, in his work on

Adolescence

, has been giving us abeautiful pace -- only he has been traveling backward. Permit me to quote from thechapter on "Adolescent Girls and Their Education" what seems to me a fairrepresentation of the mediæval standpoint -- done, perhaps, in oriental color. He says(Vol. II, chap. 17, p. 562):She [woman] works by intuition and feeling..... If she abandons her naturalnaïveté and takes up the burden of guiding and accounting for her life by

WHEREIN SHOULD THE EDUCATION OF A WOMAN DIFFER FROM THAT OF A MAN

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com3consciousness, she is likely to lose more than she gains, according to theold saw that she who deliberates is lost..... Biological psychology alreadydreams of a new philosophy of sex which places the wife and mother atthe heart of a new world and makes her the object of a new religion andalmost of a new worship, that will give her reverent exemption from sex-competition and reconsecrate her to the higher responsibilities of thehuman race into the past and future of which the roots of her beingpenetrate; where the blind worship of mere mental illumination has noplace; and where her real superiority to man will have free course and beglorified. [p. 790]We find further on, p. 646, that the author profoundly sympathizes with woman's claims,that he has worship and adoration for her shrine, and that he is "more and morepassionately in love with woman as he conceives she came from the hand of God."This is certainly all very handsome indeed, but to adore this naïve being, passionately toworship an unconscious divinity (the roots of whose being are so penetrating), is it not avery apotheosis of the vegetable? This attitude toward women did very well in the MiddleAges, but, to tell the truth, the modern woman is made a little bit ill by the incense. Shelongs for fresh air and common-sense, and is not willing to be a dolt for the sake of beingcalled a deity. In a word, she is ready to resign the charm of her naïveté, and to brave theperils of consciousness and reflection.President's Hall's central thesis is that a woman ought to be trained to regard matrimonyas her one legitimate province. Concerning the details of curriculum and method he offersthe suggestion that botany should be taught with an emphasis on its poetic aspect,zoölogy with plenty of pets. Astronomy and geology are valuable because they can betaught out of doors! Specialization hurts a woman's soul more that it does a man's.The serious valuations of this writer's conclusions need not detain us long; for a work sobizarre both in style and taste is not to be classed as literature; neither can an inquiry souncritical in method find a place in science. I have quoted at some length because theabove discussion raises the two questions upon which I wish to speak. First: Should awoman's school and college training be in any sense a matrimonial education? This Ishould call the social side of the question. Second: When a woman is pursuing the samesubject that a man is, must she be taught by a different method? This is the psychologicalquestion.The first point must not be confused with the query whether a woman needs specialtraining for matrimony. Nobody denies that a woman, if she marries, should beacquainted in some degree with domestic economy and the care of children. The questionis: Are the school and college years the time for such instruction, or are these institutionsthe place for it? In the first place, a girl's domestic training should not begin until sheknows not only that she will marry, but whom she will marry. An adequate matrimonialeducation should be regulated to wit the taste and the income of the man who's wife sheis going to be. So one will pretend that all men like the same thing in a woman, nor that