APPENDIX. HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. "In stately halls of learning, To Heaven's four winds are hurled; "Great Statesmen govern Nations, The ponderous wheel of fortune Is the hand that rules the world." "If I were asked to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of the Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply, to the superiority of their women. -Democracy in America. Woman's Higher Education may be defined as that education which follows that of school, consisting of moral precepts to govern the conduct of life, and to regulate it in our relations to society, and lay broad foundations for the character of those whom it is our duty to instruct and train for lives of future usefulness. 66 Said Amie Martin: Young girls, young wives, young mothers, you hold the sceptre; in your souls, much more than in the laws of Legislators, now repose the futurity of the world and the destinies of the human race." The women of the Colored Race need to well understand their duty to one another, and to the world at large, their relation to society, and the good that may be accomplished by rightly understanding what is expected of them, and what may be accomplished by them, in elevating their people. Society, as we now find it, reveals the fact that many are awake to the necessity of engrafting into their people the higher culture of their powers, and their labors have resulted in accomplishing much good. As a race, they are truly susceptible of this higher culture, but much work is yet required to obliterate the moral evils contracted through long years of bondage, and we trust that this essay may serve as an inspiration to many to lend their influence in gaining this desired end. More than two thousand years ago, Isocrates, a distinguished writer of Athens, gave utterance to his views concerning the chief requisite toward contributing to the happiness of a people or a State. He laid great stress upon the importance of bestowing the strictest attention upon the education and early training of the youth, in order to gain this end. Word for - word, what he then uttered is applicable to the present condition of our society. The history of social life is always repeating itself, as is the history of Nations, and those people are the wisest who take the lessons to heart. To a second Isocrates, a disciple of the Athenian orator, is attributed another discourse, which consists of moral precepts for the conduct of life and the regulation of the deportment of the young, illustrating the fact that, link by link, through long centuries, has the culture of one generation been carried down and connected with the next. for the ultimate advancement of mankind. The individual may perish, the race become extinct, but the effect of culture throws reflected light down the channel of time. ones. All systems may be said to have descended from previous The ideas of one generation are the mysterious progenitors of those of the next. Each age is the dawn of its successor, and in the eternal advance of truth, There always is a rising sun, It is thus true that there is nothing new under the sun, since the new grows from the old as boughs grow from the tree; and though errors and exaggerations are, from time to time shaken off, yet, "the things which cannot be shaken" will certainly abide. Carlyle says: "Literature is but a branch of religion, and always participates in its character." It is still more true that education is a branch of mental philosophy, and takes its mould and fashion from it. For it is evident that as philosophy, in successive ages, gives varying answers as to man's chief end and summum bonum, so education, which is simply an attempt to prepare him therefor, must vary accordingly. Humboldt hints that the vegetation of whole regions bespeaks and depends upon the strata beneath; and it is certainly true that we cannot delve long in the teacher's plot without coming upon those moral questions that go down to the centre. Richter delighted to preach the doctrine of an ideal man, and that education is the harmonious development of the faculties and dispositions of each individual. No one knew better than he that (in Carlyle's words) a loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge. This it is that opens the whole mind, and quickens every faculty of the intellect to do its fit work. This it is which influences and controls the manners, and, with proper training, distinguishes the well-educated from the illeducated. It is the women of a Nation who make the manners of the men. It has been said that there is scarcely any soul born into this world in which a self-sacrificing, steady effort on the parents' part may not lay broad and deep the foundations of strength of will, of self-control; and, therefore, of that selfreverence and self-knowledge. which, combined with the possession and love of noble ideas, will enable men and women not only to have good manners, but to be true and useful to 'God and mankind. The regeneration of their society is in the power of the colored woman, and she must not turn away from it. The manners of men, the hearts of men, the lives of men, are in her hands. How does she use her power? We look with pride upon the thousands of colored women scattered all over our broad land, true and noble representatives of the ideal. woman, inspired by a lofty ambition, and a desire to elevate their people to higher walks in social life, but, alas, all are not So. We see living answers to this sad truth in every circle of society around us. There is no sadder sight in this world than to see the women of a land grasping at the ignoble honor and rejecting the noble; leading the men, whom they should guide into high thought and active sacrifice, into petty slander of gossip in conversation, and into discussion of dangerous and unhealthy feeling, becoming in this degradation of their directing power the curse, and not the blessing of social intercourse -becoming what men in frivolous moments wish them to be, instead of making men what men should be; ceasing to protest against impurity and unbelief, and giving them an underhand encouragement, turning away from their mission to bless, to exalt, and to console, that they may struggle through a thousand meannesses into a higher position, and waste their divine energy to win precedence over a rival; expending all the force which their nature gives them in their false and sometimes base excitements, day after day, with an awful blindness and a pitiable degradation; exhausting life in amusements which fritter away, or in amusements which debase their character-not thinking of the thousands of their sisters who are weeping in the night for hunger and for misery of heart. This is not our work, some say, this is the work of the men. Be it so, if you like. Let them be the hands that do it; but who, if not women, are to be the hearts of the redemption of their sex from social wrong? Still nearer home lies the point which is nearest the heart of those interested in the higher culture of women, namely, the proper education of the colored youth. Our miscalled education looks chiefly as to how a young girl may make a good figure in society, and this destroys in her the beauty of unconsciousness of self. She grows up and enters society, and there is either a violent reaction against conventionality, or there is a paralyzing sensitiveness to opinion, or there is a dull repose of character and manner, which is all but equivalent to stagnation. We see many who are afraid of saying openly what they think or feel, if it be in opposition to the accredited opinion of the world; we see others who rejoice in shocking opinion for the sake of making themselves remarkable-perhaps the basest form of social vanity, for it gives pain and does not spring from conviction. Both forms arise from the education which makes the child self-conscious, leading the mind to ask that degrading question, "What will people say of me?" Colored women should guard closely against this, for, to make your children live only by the opinions of others, to train them not to influence, but to submit to the world, is to educate them to think only of themselves, is to train them up to inward falseness, is to destroy all eternal distinctions between right and wrong, is to reduce them to that level of uneducated unoriginality which is the most melancholy feature in the young society of the present day. Let them grow naturally, keep them as long as is possible unconscious of themselves; and, for the sake of the world, which, in the midst of all its conventional dullness, longs for something fresh and true, if not for their own sakes, do not press upon them the belief that the voice of society is the measure of what is right or wrong, beautiful or unbeautiful, fitting or unfitting for them to do. This want of individuality is one of the most painful deficiencies in our present society. The ratification of this evil lies at the root of Christianity, for all Christ's teachings tend to produce individuality, to rescue men from being mingled up, indistinguishable atoms, with the mass of men; to teach them that they possess a distinct character which it is God's will to educate; distinct gifts which God will inspire and develop. We want men and women who will think for themselves, and study deeply the great lessons that may be learned by the And now we development of their own individual character. see a desire manifested among the colored people, a longing for some fresh ideas to come and stir the stagnant pools of life. This may be best accomplished by the angels of our households wherever there is one who, in the face of manifold discouragements of daily life, "borne down by the little carking cares that sap out love so slowly but so surely," still bears up. and by example and conversation |