{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29343/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29343","id":"gutenberg_29343","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29343","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Teaching & Education","Speeches, addresses, etc."],"text":"Produced by Bryan Ness, Laura Ulibarri and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nbook was produced from scanned images of public domain\nmaterial from the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHREE ADDRESSES\n\nTO\n\nGIRLS AT SCHOOL\n\n\n\n\nTHREE ADDRESSES\n\nTO\n\nGIRLS AT SCHOOL\n\nBY THE\n\nREV. J. M. WILSON, M.A.\n\nHEAD MASTER OF CLIFTON COLLEGE\nAND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CLIFTON HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS\n\nLondon\n\nPERCIVAL & CO.\n_KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN_\n1890\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe following addresses were printed for private circulation among those\nto whom they were delivered. But they fell also into other hands; and I\nhave been frequently asked to publish them. I hesitated, on account of\nthe personal and local allusions; but I have found it impossible to\nremove these allusions, and I have therefore reprinted the addresses in\ntheir original form.\n\n                                                               J.M.W.\n\n  CLIFTON COLLEGE,\n\n   _Sept. 1890._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                          PAGE\n\nI.\n\nEDUCATION                                    1\n\n_October 25, 1887._\n\nTHE HIGH SCHOOL, CLIFTON.\n\n\nII.\n\nHIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS             21\n\n_December, 1889._\n\nTHE HIGH SCHOOLS AT BATH AND CLIFTON.\n\n\nIII.\n\nRELIGION                                    53\n\n_April 13, 1890._\n\nST. LEONARD'S SCHOOL, ST. ANDREWS, FIFE.\n\n\n\n\nTHREE ADDRESSES\n\nTO\n\nGIRLS AT SCHOOL\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nEDUCATION.\n\n\n\n\nEDUCATION.[1]\n\n\nNow that I have given away the certificates it will be expected that I\nshould make a few remarks on that inexhaustible subject, Education. My\nremarks will be brief.\n\nI take this opportunity of explaining to our visitors the nature of the\nHigher Certificate examination. It is an examination instituted\noriginally to test the efficiency of the highest forms of our public\nschools, and to enable boys to pass the earlier University examinations\nwhile still at school. The subjects of study are divided into four\ngroups. In order to obtain a certificate it is necessary to pass in four\nsubjects taken from not less than three groups. A certificate therefore\nensures a sound and fairly wide education. The subjects of the groups\nare languages, mathematics, English history, and lastly science. One\nconcession is made to girls which is not made to boys. They are allowed\nto pass in two subjects one year, and two others the next, and thus\nobtain their certificates piecemeal. Boys have to pass in all four\nsubjects the same year. The High School sent in seventeen candidates for\nthe examination in two or three of the subjects--History, Elementary\nMathematics, French, German, and Latin,--and fifteen of these passed in\ntwo subjects at least: and, inasmuch as seven of them had in a previous\nyear passed in two other subjects, they obtained their certificates. The\nrest carry on their two subjects, and will, we hope, obtain their\ncertificates next summer; six of them appear to be still in the school.\nThis is a very satisfactory result. The value of these certificates to\nthe public is the testimony they give to the very high efficiency of the\nteaching. These examinations are not of the standard of the Junior or\nSenior Local Examinations. They are very much harder. And all who know\nabout these matters see at a glance that a school that ventures to send\nin its girls for this examination only is aiming very high. The\ncertificates for Music, given by the Harrow Music School examiners, are\nalso recognised by the profession as having a considerable value. But on\nthis subject I cannot speak with the same knowledge.\n\nThe value of these examinations to the mistresses is that they serve as\na guide and standard for teaching. We are all of us the better for being\nthus kept up to the mark. Their value to you is that they help to make\nyour work definite and sound: and that, if it is slipshod, you shall at\nany rate know that it is slipshod.\n\nTherefore, speaking for the Council, and as the parent of a High School\ngirl, and as one of the public, I may say that we set a very high value\non these examinations and their results. They test and prove absolute\nmerit. Now, you may have noticed that one of the characteristics of\nthis school is the absence of all prizes and personal competitions\nwithin the school itself; all that only brings out the relative merit of\nindividuals. I dare say you have wondered why this should be so, and\nperhaps grumbled a little. \"Other girls,\" you say, \"bring home prizes:\nour brothers bring home prizes; or at any rate have the chance of doing\nso--why don't we?\" And not only you, but some friends of the school who\nwould like to give prizes--for it is a great pleasure to give\nprizes--have sometimes wondered why Miss Woods says \"No.\" I will tell\nyou why. Miss Woods holds--and I believe she is quite right--that to\nintroduce the element of competition, while it would certainly stimulate\nthe clever and industrious to more work, would also certainly tend to\nobscure and weaken the real motives for work in all, which ought to\noutlive, but do not always outlive, the age at which prizes are won.\n\nIntelligent industry, without the inducement of prizes, is a far more\nprecious and far more durable habit than industry stimulated by\nincessant competition. Teaching and learning are alike the better for\nthe absence of this element, when possible. I consider this to be one of\nthe most striking characteristics of our High School, and one of which\nyou ought to be most proud. It is a distinction of this school. And when\nyou speak of it, as you well may do, with some pride, you will not\nforget that it is due entirely to the genius and character of your\nHead-mistress. I believe that one result will be, that you will be the\nmore certain to continue to educate yourselves, and not to imagine that\neducation is over when you leave school.\n\nIs it necessary to say anything to you about the value of education? I\nthink it is; because so many of the processes of education seem at the\ntime to be drudgery, that any glimpses and reminders of the noble\nresults attained by all this drudgery are cheering and encouraging. The\nreason why it is worth your while to get the best possible education\nyou can, to continue it as long as you can, to make the very most of it\nby using all your intelligence and industry and vivacity, and by\nresolving to enjoy every detail of it, and indeed of all your school\nlife, is that it will make you--_you yourself_--so much more of a\nperson. More--as being more pleasant to others, more useful to others,\nin an ever-widening sphere of influence, but also more as attaining a\nhigher development of your own nature.\n\nLet us look at two or three ways in which, as you may easily see,\neducation helps to do some of these things.\n\nEducation increases your interest in everything; in art, in history, in\npolitics, in literature, in novels, in scenery, in character, in travel,\nin your relation to friends, to servants, to everybody. And it is\n_interest_ in these things that is the never-failing charm in a\ncompanion. Who could bear to live with a thoroughly uneducated woman?--a\ncountry milkmaid, for instance, or an uneducated milliner's girl. She\nwould bore one to death in a week. Now, just so far as girls of your\nclass approach to the type of the milkmaid or the milliner, so far they\nare sure to be eventually mere gossips and bores to friends, family, and\nacquaintance, in spite of amiabilities of all sorts. Many-sided and\never-growing interests, a life and aims capable of expansion--the fruits\nof a trained and active mind--are the durable charms and wholesome\ninfluences in all society. These are among the results of a really\nliberal education. Education does something to overcome the prejudices\nof mere ignorance. Of all sorts of massive, impenetrable obstacles, the\nmost hopeless and immovable is the prejudice of a thoroughly ignorant\nand narrow-minded woman of a certain social position. It forms a solid\nwall which bars all progress. Argument, authority, proof, experience\navail nought. And remember, that the prejudices of ignorance are\nresponsible for far more evils in this world than ill-nature or even\nvice. Ill-nature and vice are not very common, at any rate in the rank\nof ladies; they are discountenanced by society; but the prejudices of\nignorance--I am sure you wish me to tell you the truth--these are not\nrare.\n\nThink, moreover, for a moment how much the cultivated intelligence of a\nfew does to render the society in which we move more enjoyable: how it\nconverts \"the random and officious sociabilities of society\" into a\nquickening and enjoyable intercourse and stimulus: everybody can recall\ninstances of such a happy result of education. This can only be done by\neducated women. How much more might be done if there were more of them!\n\nAnd think, too, how enormously a great increase of trained intelligence\nin our own class--among such as you will be in a few years--would\nincrease the power of dealing with great social questions. All sorts of\nwork is brought to a standstill for want of trained intelligence. It is\nnot good will, it is not enthusiasm, it is not money that is wanted for\nall sorts of work; it is good sense, trained intelligence, cultivated\nminds. Some rather difficult piece of work has to be done; and one runs\nover in one's mind who could be found to do it. One after another is\ngiven up. One lacks the ability--another the steadiness--another the\ntraining--another the mind awakened to see the need: and so the work is\nnot done. \"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.\" A\nreally liberal education, and the influence at school of cultivated and\nvigorous minds, is the cure for this.\n\nAgain, you will do little good in the world unless you have wide and\nstrong sympathies: wide--so as to embrace many different types of\ncharacter; strong--so as to outlast minor rebuffs and failures. Now\nunderstanding is the first step to sympathy, and therefore education\nwidens and strengthens our sympathies: it delivers us from ignorant\nprepossessions, and in this way alone it doubles our powers, and fits us\nfor far greater varieties of life, and for the unknown demands that the\nfuture may make upon us.\n\nI spoke of the narrowness and immovability of ignorance. There is\nanother narrowness which is not due to ignorance so much as to\npersistent exclusiveness in the range of ideas admitted. Fight against\nthis with all your might. The tendency of all uneducated people is to\nview each thing as it is by itself, each part without reference to the\nwhole; and then increased knowledge of that part does little more than\nintensify the narrowness. Education--liberal education--and the\nassociation with many and active types of mind, among people of your own\nage, as well as your teachers, is the only cure for this. Try to\nunderstand other people's point of view. Don't think that you and a\nselect few have a monopoly of all truth and wisdom. \"It takes all sorts\nto make a world,\" and you must understand \"all sorts\" if you would\nunderstand the world and help it.\n\nYou are living in a great age, when changes of many kinds are in\nprogress in our political and social and religious ideas. There never\nwas a greater need of trained intelligence, clear heads, and earnest\nhearts. And the part that women play is not a subordinate one. They act\ndirectly, and still more indirectly. The best men that have ever lived\nhave traced their high ideals to the influence of noble women as mothers\nor sisters or wives. No man who is engaged in the serious work of the\nworld, in the effort to purify public opinion and direct it aright, but\nis helped or hindered by the women of his household. Few men can stand\nthe depressing and degrading influence of the uninterested and placid\namiability of women incapable of the true public spirit, incapable of a\ngenerous or noble aim--whose whole sphere of ideas is petty and\npersonal. It is not only that such women do nothing themselves--they\nslowly asphyxiate their friends, their brothers, or their husbands.\nThese are the unawakened women; and education may deliver you from this\ndreadful fate, which is commoner than you think.\n\nIn no respect is the influence of women more important than in religion.\nMuch might be said of the obstacles placed in the way of religious\nprogress by the crude and dogmatic prepossessions of ignorant women, who\nwill rush in with confident assertion where angels might fear to tread:\nbut this is neither the time nor the place for such remarks. It is\nenough to remind you that in no part of your life do you more need the\nwidth and modesty and courage of thought, and the delicacy of insight\ngiven by culture, than when you are facing the grave religious questions\nof the day, either for yourself or others.\n\nBut let me turn to a somewhat less serious subject. We earnestly desire\nthat women should be highly educated. And yet is there not a type of\neducated woman which we do not wholly admire? I am not going to\ncaricature a bluestocking, but to point out one or two real dangers.\nEducation is good; but perfect sanity is better still. Sanity is the\nmost excellent of all women's excellences. We forgive eccentricity and\none-sidedness--the want of perfect sanity--in men, and especially men\nof genius; and we rather reluctantly forgive it in women of genius; but\nin ordinary folk, no. These are the strong-minded women; ordinary folk,\nwho make a vigorous protest against one or two of the minor mistakes of\nsociety, instead of lifting the whole: I should call these, women of\nimperfect sanity. It is a small matter that you should protest against\nsome small maladjustment or folly; but it is a great matter that you\nshould be perfectly sane and well-balanced. Now education helps sanity.\nIt shows the proportion of things. An American essayist bids us \"keep\nour eyes on the fixed stars.\" Education helps us to do this. It helps us\nto live the life we have to lead on a higher mental and spiritual level\nit glorifies the actual.\n\nAnd now, seeing these things are so, what ought to be the attitude of\neducated girls and women towards pleasures, the usual pleasures of\nsociety? Certainly not the cynical one--\"Life would be tolerable if it\nwere not for its pleasures.\" Pleasures do make up, and ought to make\nup, a considerable portion of life. Now I have no time for an essay on\npleasures. I will only offer two remarks. One is that the pleasure open\nto all cultivated women, even in the pleasures that please them least,\nis the pleasure of giving pleasure. Go to give pleasure, not to get it,\nand that converts anything into a pleasure. The other remark is, Pitch\nyour ordinary level of life on so quiet a note that simple things shall\nnot fail to please. If home, and children, and games, and the daily\nroutine of life--if the sight of October woods and the Severn sea, and\nof human happy faces fail to please, then either in fact or in\nimagination you are drugging yourself with some strong drink of\nexcitement, and spoiling the natural healthy appetite for simple\npleasures. This is one of the dangers of educated women: but it is their\ndanger because they are imperfectly educated: educated on one side, that\nof books; and not on the other and greater side, of wide human\nsympathies. Society seems to burden and narrow and dull the uneducated\nwoman, but it also hardens and dulls a certain sort of educated woman\ntoo, one who refuses her sympathies to the pleasures of life. But to the\nfuller nature, society brings width and fresh clearness. It gives the\nlarger heart and the readier sympathy, and the wider the sphere the more\ndoes such a nature expand to fill it.\n\nWhat I am now saying amounts to this, that an educated intelligence is\ngood, but an educated sympathy is better. I recall certain lines written\nby the late Lord Carlisle on being told that a lady was plain and\ncommonplace:--\n\n        \"You say that my love is plain,\n          But that I can never allow,\n        When I look at the thought for others\n          That is written on her brow.\n\n        \"The eyes are not fine, I own,\n          She has not a well-cut nose,\n        But a smile for others' pleasure\n          And a sigh for others' woes.\n\n        \"Quick to perceive a want,\n          Quicker to set it right,\n        Quickest in overlooking\n          Injury, wrong, or slight.\n\n        \"Hark to her words to the sick,\n          Look at her patient ways,\n        Every word she utters\n          Speaks to the speaker's praise.\n\n        \"Purity, truth, and love,\n          Are they such common things?\n        If hers were a common nature\n          Women would all have wings.\n\n        \"Talent she may not have,\n          Beauty, nor wit, nor grace,\n        But until she's among the angels\n          She cannot be commonplace.\"\n\nThere is something to remember: cultivate sympathy, gentleness,\nforgiveness, purity, truth, love: and then, though you may have no other\ngifts, \"until you're among the angels, you cannot be commonplace.\"\n\nAnd here I might conclude. But I should not satisfy myself or you, if I\ndid so without paying my tribute of genuine commendation to the High\nSchool, and of hearty respect for the Head-mistress and her staff of\nteachers. Clifton owes Miss Woods a great debt for the tone of\nhigh-mindedness and loyalty, for the moral and intellectual stamp that\nshe has set on the School. She has won, as we all know, the sincere\nrespect and attachment of her mistresses and her old pupils; and the\nolder and wiser you grow the more you all will learn to honour and love\nher. And you will please her best by thorough loyalty to the highest\naims of the School which she puts before you by her words and by her\nexample.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: An Address given at the High School, Clifton, Oct. 25,\n1887.]\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nHIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS.\n\n\n\n\nHIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS.[2]\n\n\nIt is a real pleasure to find myself in Bath on an educational mission.\nI have ancestral and personal educational connections with Bath of very\nold standing. My father was curate of St. Michael's before I was born;\nmy grandfather and uncle were in succession head-masters of the Grammar\nSchool here, fine scholars both, of the old school. My first visit to\nBath was when I was nine years old, and on that occasion I had my first\nreal stand-up fight with a small Bath Grammar School boy. I think that\nif the old house is still standing I could find the place where we\nfought, and where a master brutally interrupted us with a\nwalking-stick. Since those days, my relations with Bath have been rare,\nbut peaceful; unless, indeed, the honourable competition between Clifton\nCollege and its brilliant daughter, Bath College, may be regarded as a\nceaseless but a friendly combat between their two head-masters whom you\nsee so peaceably side by side.\n\nI propose, first, to say a few words about the condition of schools\ntwenty years ago, before the present impulse towards the higher\neducation of women gave us High Schools and Colleges at the\nUniversities, and other educational movements. There is a most\ninteresting chapter in the report of the Endowed Schools Commission of\n1868 on girls' schools, and some valuable evidence collected by the\nAssistant Commissioners. It is not ancient history yet, and therein lies\nits great value to us. It shows us the evils from which we are only now\nescaping in our High Schools: evils which still prevail to a formidable\nextent in a large section of girls' education, and from which I can\nscarcely imagine Bath is wholly free.\n\nThe report speaks of the general indifference of parents to the\neducation of their girls in our whole upper and middle class, both\nabsolutely and relatively to that of their boys. That indifference in\npart remains. There was a strong prejudice that girls could not learn\nthe same subjects as boys, and that even if they could, such an\neducation was useless and even injurious. That prejudice still survives,\nin face of facts.\n\nThe right education, it was thought, for girls, was one of\naccomplishments and of routine work, with conversational knowledge of\nFrench. The ideal of a girl's character was that she was to be merely\namiable, ready to please and be pleased; it was, as was somewhat\nseverely said by one of the Assistant Commissioners, not to be good and\nuseful when married, but to _get_ married. There was no ideal for single\nwomen. They did not realize how much of the work of the world must go\nundone unless there is a large class of highly educated single women.\nThis view of girls' education is not yet extinct.\n\nCorresponding to the ideal on the part of the ordinary British parent\nwas, of course, the school itself. There was no high ideal of physical\nhealth, and but little belief that it depended on physical conditions;\ntherefore the schools were neither large and airy, nor well provided\nwith recreation ground; not games and play, but an operation known as\n\"crocodiling\" formed the daily and wearisome exercise of girls. That\ndefect also is common still. There was no ideal of art, or belief in the\neffect of artistic surroundings, and therefore the schools were\nunpretending even to ugliness and meanness. The walls were not\nbeautified with pictures, nor were the rooms furnished with taste. There\nwas no high ideal of cultivating the intelligence, and therefore most of\nthe lessons that were not devoted to accomplishments, such as music,\nflower-painting, fancy work, hand-screen making, etc., were given to\nmemory work, and note-books, in which extracts were made from standard\nauthors and specimen sums worked with flourishes wondrous to behold. The\nserious study of literature and history was almost unknown. The memory\nwork consisted in many schools in learning Mangnall's Questions and\nBrewer's Guide to Science--fearful books. The first was miscellaneous:\nWhat is lightning? How is sago made? What were the Sicilian Vespers, the\nproperties of the atmosphere, the length of the Mississippi, and the\nPelagian heresy? These are, I believe, actual specimens of the\nquestions; and the answers were committed to memory. About twenty-five\nyears ago I examined some girls in Brewer's Guide to Science. The verbal\nknowledge of some of them was quite wonderful; their understanding of\nthe subject absolutely _nil_. They could rattle off all about positive\nand negative electricity, and Leyden jars and batteries; but the words\nobviously conveyed no ideas whatever, and they cheerfully talked utter\nnonsense in answer to questions not in the book.\n\nExaminations for schools were not yet instituted; the education was\nunguided, and therefore largely misguided. Do not let us imagine for an\ninstant that these evils have been generally cured. The secondary\neducation of the country is still in a deplorable condition; and it\nbehoves us to repeat on all occasions that it is so. The schools I am\ndescribing from the report of twenty years ago exist and abound and\nflourish still, owing to the widespread indifference of parents to the\neducation of their girls, to the qualifications and training of their\nmistresses, and the efficiency of the schools. Untested, unguided, they\nexist and even thrive, and will do so until a sounder public opinion and\nthe proved superiority of well-trained mistresses and well-educated\ngirls gradually exterminates the inefficient schools. But we are, I\nfear, a long way still from this desirable consummation.\n\nWhat were the mistresses? For the most part worthy, even excellent\nladies, who had no other means of livelihood, and who had no special\neducation themselves, and no training whatever. Naturally they taught\nwhat they could, and laid stress on what was called the _formation of\ncharacter_, which they usually regarded as somehow alternative with\nintellectual attainments and stimulus, and progress in which could not\nbe submitted to obvious tests.\n\nI suppose most of us think that there is no more valuable assistance in\nthe formation of character than any pursuit that leads the mind away\nfrom frivolous pursuits, egotistic or morbid fancies, and fills it with\nmemories of noble words and lives, teaches it to love our great poets\nand writers, and gives it sympathies with great causes. But this was not\nthe prevailing opinion twenty years ago. The influence of good people,\ngood homes, good example--in a word truly religious influence, as we\nshall all admit--is the strongest element in the formation of character;\nbut the next strongest is assuredly that education which teaches us to\nadmire \"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, and\nwhatsoever things are of good report;\" and this ought to be, and is, one\nof the results of the literary teaching given by well-educated\nmistresses.\n\nI have been describing the common type of what used to be called the\n\"seminaries\" and \"establishments for young ladies\" of twenty years ago.\nAnd it may give you the impression that there was no good education to\nbe got in those days, and that the ladies of my generation were\ntherefore very ill-educated. Permit me to correct that impression. There\nwere homes in which the girls learned something from father or from\nmother, or, perhaps, something from a not very talented governess; but\nin which they educated themselves with a hunger and thirst after\nknowledge, and an enjoyment of literature that is rare in any school. Do\nnot imagine that any school education under mistresses however skilled,\nor resulting in certificates however brilliant, is really as effective\nin the formation of strong intellectual tastes and clear judgment and\nability as the self-education which was won by the mothers of some of\nyou, by the women of my generation and those before. Such education was\nrare, but it was possible, and it is possible still. Under such a system\na few are educated and the many fail altogether. The advantage of our\nday is that education is offered to a much larger number. But I cannot\ncall it better than that which was won by a few in the generation of\nyour mothers. If we would combine the exceptional merits of the old\nsystem with the high average merits of the new we must jealously\npreserve the element of freedom and self-education.\n\nTo return to the report. The indifference of parents and the public, the\ninadequacy of school buildings and appliances, the low intellectual\nideals of mistresses, were the evils of twenty years ago, prevailing\nvery widely and lowering school education, and we must not expect to\nhave got rid of them altogether. An educational atmosphere is not\nchanged in twenty years.\n\nBut our High Schools are a very real step in advance. The numbers of\nyour school show that there is a considerable and increasing fraction of\nresidents in Bath who do care for the intellectual quality of the\neducation of their girls; and the report of the examiners is a most\nsatisfactory guarantee that the instruction given here is thoroughly\nefficient along the whole line. Bath must be congratulated on its High\nSchool for Girls, as it must be congratulated on its College for Boys.\n\nBut are we therefore to rest and be thankful in the complacent belief\nthat we have now at length attained perfection, at least in our High\nSchools? I am called in to bless High School education, and I do bless\nit from my heart. I know something of it. My own daughter was at such a\nschool; I have been vice-president of a High School for ten years. I\nwish there were High Schools in every town in England. They have done\nand are doing much to lift the standard of girls' education in England.\nBut I will again remind you that High Schools are educating but a\nfraction of the population, and that the faults of twenty years ago\nstill characterise our girls' education as a whole.\n\nAnd now, having said this, I shall not be misunderstood if I go on to\nspeak of some of the deficiencies in our ideals of girls' education\nwhich seem to me to affect High Schools as well as all other schools.\nOne point, in which the older education with its manifold defects had a\nreal merit, is that there was no over-teaching, no hurry to produce\nresults, and therefore no disgust aroused with learning and literature.\nAt any rate, the girls, or the best of them, left school or governess\n\"with an appetite.\" Now I consider this is a real test of teaching at\nschool or college, in science or literature: does it leave boys and\ngirls hungry for more, with such a love for learning that they will go\non studying of themselves? If the teaching of some science is such that\nyou never want to go to another science lecture as long as you live:\nyour lessons on literature such that your Shakespeare, your Spenser,\nyour Burke, your Browning will never again descend from your shelves:\nthen, whatever else schools may have done, they have sacrificed the\nfuture to the present. It is on this account that the pressure of\nexternal examinations and its effect on the teaching of mistresses must\nbe most carefully watched. To get immediate results is easy, but it is\nsometimes at the cost of later results. Our aim should be not so much to\nteach, as to make our pupils love to learn, and have methods of\nlearning; and every teacher should remember that our pupils can learn\nfar more than we can teach them; and, as Thring used to say, \"hammering\nis not teaching.\" With a system of competitive examinations for the Army\nand Civil Service, boys must sometimes sacrifice the future to the\npresent. Girls need never do so, and therefore girls' schools need not\ncopy the faults as well as the excellences of boys' schools.\n\nI have ventured to say so much for an intellectual danger in High\nSchools. I do not doubt that your head-mistress is aware of it, and on\nher guard: I speak much more to the public, to the parents, and to the\nCouncil (if I may say so), as an expert, because I know that the public\nsometimes want to be satisfied that the education is good at every\nstage, and they ought to be content if it is good at the final stage.\nAnother point on which I would venture to say a word to parents is this.\nDo not take your girls away from school too early. Every schoolmaster\nknows that the most valuable years, those which leave the deepest marks\nin character and intellect, are those from sixteen to eighteen. It is\nequally true with girls, as schoolmistresses know equally well. It is in\nthe later years that they get the full benefit of the higher teaching,\nand that much of what may have seemed the drudgery of earlier work reaps\nits natural and deserved reward. Let your children come early, so as to\nbe taught well from the beginning, and let them stay late.\n\nI do not myself know what your buildings may be; but a friend to whom I\nwrote speaks of them as inadequate and somewhat unworthy of the city.\nMay I venture to say to a Bath public that it is worth while to have\nfirst-rate buildings for educational purposes? No money is better spent.\nIf the Bath public will take this up in earnest it cannot be doubted\nthat the Girls' School Company would second their efforts in such an\nimportant centre. Come over and see our Clifton High School, with its\nspacious lawns and playgrounds and pleasant rooms, and you will be\ndiscontented with a righteous discontent.\n\nAnd now I will point out another defect in High School education which\nparents and mistresses may do much to remedy. There is usually--and I am\nassuming without direct knowledge that it is the case here--no system by\nwhich any one girl is known through her whole school career to any one\nmistress; nothing corresponding to the tutor system of our public\nschools. It follows that a girl passes from form to form, and the\nrelation between her and her mistress is so constantly broken that it is\nmorally less powerful than it might be. The friendly and permanent\nrelation of old days is converted into an official and temporary\nrelation. It will be obvious to any one who reflects that the loss is\ngreat. The cure for it is twofold. The parents may do much by\nestablishing a friendly relation with the form mistresses of their\ngirls. I have known parents who had never taken the trouble to inquire\neven the names of their girls' mistress. If parents wish to get really\nthe best out of a school, I would say to them (and I am speaking\nspecially to mothers), you are delegating to the form mistress a very\nlarge share of the responsibility for the formation of your daughter's\ncharacter; the least you can do is to be in the most friendly and\nconfidential communication with her that circumstances permit. And I\nwould say to the mistresses that, as far as is possible, you should be\nto the girls what form masters are in a good school to their\nboys--friends in school and out of school, acquainted with their\ntastes, companions sometimes in their games or their walks, and in all\nways breaking down the merely formal relation of teacher and pupil. The\nideally bad master, as I have often said to my young masters on a first\nappointment, is one who as soon as his boys clear out of the class-room,\nputs his hands in his pockets and whistles, and thanks Heaven that he\nwill see no more of the boys for so many hours. I do not know what the\ncorresponding action on the part of a mistress may be, as I believe they\nhave no pockets and can't whistle, but there is probably a corresponding\nstate of mind. I venture, therefore, to suggest that in our High Schools\nthere should be a greater _rapprochement_ than is usual between parents\nand mistresses and girls in order to make the system more truly\neducational in the best sense.\n\nI am now going to turn to a wholly different subject; and I am going to\ntalk to the girls. In the crusade against the lower type of education\nthat prevailed twenty years ago, and still exists, who are the most\nimportant agents? It is the girls who are still in the High Schools, or\nwho are passing out of them, or who are otherwise getting the higher\neducation in a few private schools. \"Ye are our epistle, known and read\nof all men,\" and read of all women too, with their still keener eyes.\n\nThere is a very real danger in our High Schools that the intellectual\nside of education may be overestimated and overpressed, not by\nmistresses, but by yourselves; and that the natural, human, domestic,\nand family elements in it may be undervalued. What are you yourselves at\nhome, in society, with parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends,\nschoolfellows, servants? Is the better education, that you are\nundoubtedly getting, widening your sympathies, opening your heart and\nmind to all the educational influences which do not consist in books or\nin work? Is it giving you greater delicacy of touch? Is it opening new\nchannels for influences, streaming in on you or streaming out from you?\nYour daily life may become a higher education, and is so to the truly\nnoble-minded and well-educated girl or woman. Do not regard as\ninterruptions, and as teasing, the calls of household, the duties to\nparents, visitors, children, and the rest; it is part of the education\nof life to fulfil all these duties well, delightfully, brilliantly,\njoyously, enthusiastically; these things are not interruptions to life,\nthey are life itself. There was a pitiful magazine article written the\nother day by some lady complaining that social duties, the having to see\nher friends, her cook, her gardener, her dress-maker, etc., prevented\nher from reading Herbert Spencer, and developing her small fragment of\nsoul. Social duties, rightly done, are one of the developments of soul.\nLet it be seen that you girls who can enjoy your literature, and your\nhistory, and your music, and your drawing with keen appreciation are not\nmade thereby selfish or unsociable; but that you are more delightful\ncreatures than those who have no such independent resources and joys. A\ngirl who gets her certificate or prize and is cross or dull at home,\nand does not think it worth while to be kind and agreeable to a young\nbrother or an old nurse, to every creature in her household down to the\ncat and the canary, is a traitor to the cause of higher education.\n\nAgain, it has been observed that the practical and artistic elements in\nschool education have been, in general, more thoroughly developed of\nlate years since they were put into a secondary place. This is as it\nshould be. Such subjects as music, drawing, cooking, housekeeping,\nwood-carving, nursing, needlework, when they are studied at all, are\nstudied more professionally and thoroughly and intelligently, and less\nin the spirit of the amateur and dabbler. So I would say to you, both\nnow and when you leave, show that your education in intelligence has\ngiven you wide interests and powers to master all such subjects. Take\nthem up all the more thoroughly.\n\nClosely akin to this merit of thoroughness is the large spirit of\nunselfishness that ought to come, and certainly in many instances does\ncome, with wider interests, a more intelligent education, and a more\nactive imagination. Women in our class have more leisure than men; they\ncan actually do what is impossible by the conditions of life for us men\nto do, link class to class by knowledge and sympathy and help and\nkindness. They can be of immense service in this way. There is a story\nin the life of an American lady, Mrs. Lynam, that occurs to me. There\nwas much conversation about a certain Mr. Robbins, who had lately died;\nhe had been such a benefactor, such a good man, and so on. A visitor\nasked, \"Did Mr. Robbins found a benevolent institution?\" \"No,\" was the\nreply, \"he _was_ a benevolent institution.\" Women of our class may be,\nthey ought to be, \"benevolent institutions.\" And such women exist among\nus; pity is there are so few of them. They can unobtrusively be centres\nof happiness, and knowledge, and generous attitudes of mind. Now there\nought to be more of such women, and I look to our High Schools with\nhope. They ought to make girls public-spirited and large-minded.\n\nThere is another element in girls' education which is only imperfectly\nas yet brought out, and which you yourselves can do something to\ndevelop. I mean the better appreciation of an education which is not in\nbooks, and not in accomplishments, and not in duties, and not in social\nintercourse. How shall I describe it? Think of the old Greek education\nof men. There was a large element of literature and poetry and natural\nreligion and imagination in it; and a large element of gymnastic also;\nbut besides all this it was an education of eye and ear; it was a\ntraining that sprang from reverence for nature, as a whole, for an ideal\nof complete life, in body and mind and soul; and not only for complete\nindividual life, but also for the city, the nation. It was a consummate\nperfection of life that was ever leading the Athenian upward, by a\nlife-long education, to strive for a certain grace and finish in every\none of his faculties. And we see to what splendid results in literature\nand art and civic and personal beauty it led them.\n\nThis element is still wanting in our higher education; it is the ideal\nof nobility of life and perfection. We lack it in our physical\neducation. That is still far from perfect. If we all, parents, children,\nboys and girls, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, had some of the\nGreek feeling of high admiration of physical perfection of form and\ngrace and activity, we should not see so many boys and girls of very\nimperfect gracefulness, nor should we see fashions of dress so ruinous\nto all ideals of perfection and grace. We cannot make up for the want of\nthis national artistic ideal of beauty of figure by artificial\ngymnastics, scientific posturings, and ladders and bars. They are better\nthan nothing, they are a protest, they certainly remedy some defects and\nprevent others. But do not you be content with them. By self-respect and\nself-discipline, by healthy life, early hours, open air, natural\nexercise, the joyous and free use of all your powers, by dancing,\nplaying games, by refusal to give way to unhealthy and disfiguring\nfashions, and, above all, by an aspiration after grace and perfection,\ndo what you can to remedy this national defect in our ideals for girls.\n\nDid you ever read Kingsley's \"Nausicaa in London\"? Do you all know who\nNausicaa was? If not, let me advise you to borrow Worsley's \"Odyssey\"\nand read Book VI., and read Kingsley's Essay too. Nausicaa was a Greek\nmaiden who played at ball; and I think you are doing more to approach\nthe old Greek ideal when you play at lawn tennis and cricket and hockey,\nand I would add rounders and many another game, than when you are going\nthrough ordered exercises, valuable as they are, or even than when you\nare learning Greek or copying Greek statues.\n\nThis leads me to say that games contribute much to remedy another\ndeficiency in our ideal. There is a defective power of real enjoyment of\nlife, of healthy spirits among us moderns. There is more enjoyment now\nthan there was. I think my generation was better than the one that\npreceded us in this respect; we had more games, more fun, more _abandon_\nin enjoyment than our fathers and mothers, your grandfathers and\ngrandmothers, had, if we may judge from letters published and\nunpublished. And they too often thought we were a frivolous generation,\nnot so staid and decorous as we might be, and repressed and checked us;\nwhile we on the contrary urge on you to enjoy more fully the splendour\nof your youth and vitality. We desire to see you dance and sing and\nlaugh and bubble over with the delicious inexhaustible flow of vital\nenergy; we know that it need not interfere with the refinement of\nperfect manners and decorum, and we know too that there is the force\nwhich will sober down and do good work, and there is the health-giving\nexercise, the geniality, and the joy that will make you stronger and\npleasanter, more patient and more persuasive to good in years to come.\nSo it is with boys: men are made in our playgrounds as much as in the\nclass-room; so, too, is it with you. I must give you a quotation from\n\"Fo'c's'le Yarns,\" that delightfullest of volumes--\n\n    \"It's likely God has got a plan\n    To put a spirit in a man\n    That's more than you can stow away\n    In the heart of a child. But he'll see the day\n    When he'll not have a bit too much for the work\n    He's got to do. And the little Turk\n    Is good for nothing but shouting and fighting\n    And carrying on; and God delighting\n    To make him strong and bold and free\n    And thinking the man he's going to be--\n    More beef than butter, more lean than lard,\n    Hard if you like, but the world is hard.\n    You'll see a river how it dances\n    From rock to rock wherever it chances:\n    In and out, and here and there\n    A regular young divil-may-care.\n    But, caught in the sluice, it's another case,\n    And it steadies down, and it flushes the race\n    Very deep and strong, but still\n    It's not too much to work the mill.\n    The same with hosses: kick and bite\n    And winch away--all right, all right,\n    Wait a bit and give him his ground,\n    And he'll win his rider a thousand pound.\"\n\nThere is a word in German which has no English equivalent; it expresses\njust the missing ideal I am speaking of. It is a terrible mouthful, as\nGerman words often are--Lebensglueckseligkeit--it is the rapture and\nblessedness and happiness of living. Carry the idea away with you, and\nmake it one of your personal ideals, and home ideals, and school ideals,\nand life ideals, this Lebensglueckseligkeit.\n\n    \"'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,\n    Oh life, not death, for which we pant;\n    More life, and fuller, that I want.\"\n\nYou can carry this idea with you into society, and use it to brighten\nits conventional sociabilities, and stimulate them into positive\nenjoyability by more of intelligence and animation.\n\nWe had a visit the other day from an American gentleman, Mr. Muybridge,\nwho came to give a lecture at Clifton College. I believe he also\nlectured in Bath. He remarked to Mrs. Wilson in the lecture-room that he\nwas glad to see some ladies present. \"I like ladies at my lectures; they\nare so intelligent.\" \"Yes,\" she replied, \"but I fear you are\nattributing to us the qualities of American ladies; we are not\nparticularly intelligent.\" \"You are joking!\" was his reply. \"No,\" she\nwent on, \"we are always told how much more intelligent American ladies\nare than English.\" He paused for some time, and then slowly said, \"Well,\nI'll not deny they are smarter.\"\n\nWell, this quality that Mr. Muybridge describes as \"smartness\" is an\nAmerican equivalent of Lebensglueckseligkeit; it is a sort of intensity\nof life, of vivacity, of willingness to take trouble, to interest and be\ninterested, that is a little lacking in our English ideal of young\nladies: and we must be on our guard lest any school ideals of study and\nbookishness should actually increase this deficiency. Any one, mistress\nor girl, who makes good education to be associated with dulness and\nboredom and insipidity is again a traitor to the cause of higher\neducation.\n\nI have run to greater length than I intended, and I will conclude.\n\nIt should be the aim of us all, Council, parents, mistresses, and girls,\nto show that our ideal of education includes both the training of the\nintelligence and reason, and the storing the mind with treasures of\nbeauty and instruments of power for opening new avenues into the\nstorehouse of knowledge and delight that the world contains; and also\nthe development of the practical ability, the benevolence and sympathy,\nthe vivacity, the enjoyment of life, the fulness of activity, bodily and\nmental, that makes the Lebensglueckseligkeit I spoke of, and the\nsuperadding, or rather diffusing through it all, an unobtrusive but deep\nChristian faith and reverence and charity.\n\nThe Archbishop of Canterbury lately said in his charge that \"public\nschools were infinitely more conducive to a strong morality than any\nother institution.\" He was thinking of boys' schools, of which he speaks\nwith intimate knowledge; but I believe that, where girls' schools have\nat their head one who in the spirit of Dr. Arnold recognizes the\nresponsibility for giving an unostentatious, unpartisan-like, but\nall-pervading and intelligent religious tone to the life, the aims, and\nthe ideal of the school, and where the Council and parents value this\ninfluence, there the influence of girls' High Schools may be more\nconducive to strong morality and true religion in England than even that\nof our great public schools. For the High Schools are training more and\nmore of the most influential class among the women of England, as the\npublic schools are training the men, and the influence of women must of\nnecessity be of the first importance; for it is they who determine the\nreligious training and the atmosphere of the home, and thus profoundly\naffect the national character. Let us all alike try to keep before\nourselves from day to day and from year to year these high ideals of\neducation which can nowhere be so well attained, both by mistresses and\ngirls, as in a High School.\n\nAnd in particular let me appeal to you, the inhabitants of Bath, to be\nproud of this school, to foster it, to assist it in every way, and be\nassured that in so doing you are conferring a lasting benefit on your\nfamous city.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 2: An Address delivered at the High School, Bath, and the High\nSchool, Clifton, Dec. 1889.]\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nRELIGION.\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION.[3]\n\n\nI am not going to preach you a sermon of quite the usual type, but\nintend rather to offer a few detached remarks without attempting to\nweave them into any unity of plan, or to connect them with any\nparticular text from the Bible. Such unity as these remarks may possess\nwill result not from design but from the nature of the subject. For I am\ngoing to speak about religion.\n\nNow as I write this word I almost fancy I hear the rustle of an audience\ncomposing itself to endure what it foresees must be a dull and\nuninteresting address. \"Religion! he can't make that interesting.\" Now,\nwhy is this? What is religion, that in the eyes of so many clever and\nintelligent and well-educated young people it should be thought dull?\n\nOf this one point I am quite sure, that it is the fault of our\nmisunderstanding and misrepresentation, in the past and the present,\nthat religion seems dull.\n\nReligion is, in its essence, the opening to the young mind of all the\nhigher regions of thought and aspiration and imagination and\nspirituality. When you are quite young you are occupied of course with\nthe visible things and people round you; each hour brings its\namusements, its occupations and its delights, and reflection scarcely\nbegins. But soon questions of right and wrong spring up; a world of\nideas and imaginations opens before you; you are led by your teachers\nand your books into the presence of great thoughts, the inspirations\nthat come from beauty in all forms, from nature, from art, from\nliterature, and especially from poets; you come under the influence of\nfriends--fathers, mothers, or other elders--who evidently have springs\nof conduct and aspirations you as yet only dimly recognize; and mixed\nwith all these influences there is that influence on us from childhood\nupward of our prayers that we have been taught, our religious services,\nour Bibles, and most of all the Sacred Figure, dimly seen, but never\nlong absent from our thoughts, enveloped in a sort of sacred and\nmysterious halo--the figure of our Lord Jesus Christ enshrined in our\nhearts, and that Father in Heaven of Whom He spoke. All these are among\nthe religious influences; and what is their aim and object? What is it\nthat we should try and extract from them for ourselves? How should we\nuse them in our turn to better those who come after us?\n\nWell, I reply, they should all be regarded as the avenues by which our\nhuman nature as a whole ought to rise, and the only avenues by which it\ncan rise, to its rightful and splendid heritage and its true\ndevelopment. We cannot be all that we might be without straining our\nefforts in this direction of aspiration towards God, towards all that\nis ideal, spiritual and divine.\n\nWe are often inert, effortless, and then the religion I have spoken of\nrepels us because it demands an effort; we are often selfish, and it\nrepels us because it calls us out of self; we are often absorbed in the\nsmall and immediate aims for present enjoyment, interested in our own\nsmall circles, and religion insists that these are not enough. It is for\never calling us, as all true education calls us, as literature and\nhistory call us, to rise higher, to see more, to widen our sympathies,\nto enlarge our hearts, to open the doors of feeling and emotion.\nReligion therefore may make great demands on us; it may disturb our\nrepose; it may shake us, and say, look, look; look up, look round; it\nmay be importunate, insistent, omnipresent, but it is not dull.\n\nThere is a sham semblance of religion which you are right in regarding\nas dull, for it is dull. When it is unreal and insincere it is deadly\ndull; when phrases are repeated, parrotwise, by people who have either\nnever felt or have long lost their power and inspiration, then too it is\ndeadly dull. When a sharp line, moreover, is made between all the\nvarious influences that elevate us, and place us in presence of the\nideal and spiritual world; when the common relations of life, when art,\npoetry, criticism, science; when educated and refining intercourse and\nconversation, and all that occupies us on our intellectual sides is\nclassed as secular, and the only helps to religion that are recognized\nare services and creeds and traditions of our particular church, then\nsuch religion cuts itself off from many of its springs, and from most of\nits fairest fields, and _is_ barren, and unprofitable, and dull.\n\nYou are not likely to make this error. You are perhaps more likely to\nmake the opposite error, by a natural reaction from this. Because, when\nall the world of interest and beauty and human life is opening before\nyou, you cannot believe that religion is confined to the narrow sphere\nof ideas in which it was once thought to consist, and is still sometimes\ndeclared to consist, you may think that you can dispense with that\nnarrow but central sphere of ideas; and there you are wrong. I am quite\nsure that there is no inspiring and sustaining force, which shall make\nyour lives worthy, comparable to the faith which Christ taught the\nworld, that we are verily the children of God, and sharers of His Divine\nlife, heirs of an eternal life in Christ towards which we may press, and\nthe appointed path to which lies in the highest duties that our daily\nlife presents and consecrates. On this inspiring power of faith in\nChrist I shall not speak to-day. I mean to speak on one only of the\nduties which form the path to the higher life, which you may overlook,\nand yet which is inherent in religion.\n\nThe duty which I shall speak of is the necessity of entering into the\nlife and needs and sympathies of others; of living not with an eye\nexclusively on yourself, but with the constant thought for others. It\nis the law of our being that admits of no exception. You may hope that\nthe law of gravitation will be suspended in your case, and leap out of\nthe window; but you will suffer for your mistake; and you will be\nequally mistaken and equally maim your life, if you think that somehow\nthe law of the spiritual world would admit of exception, and that you\ncan win happiness, goodness, and the full tide of life; become the best\nthat you are capable of being, while remaining isolated,\nself-absorbed--by being centripetal, not centrifugal. It cannot be. Now\nthis is worth saying to you, because you know here at school what a\nunited social life is. All girls do not know this. You do. There is\ndistinctly here a school life, a school feeling, a house feeling. No\ncasual visitor to your playing fields and hall can mistake this. And you\nknow that this enlarges and draws something out of your nature that\nwould never have been suspected had it not been for school life. But\nwhen school life ends, what will become of this discovery that you have\nmade? Boys, when they leave school and have developed the passionate\nfeeling of love for their old school,--the strong _esprit de corps_, the\nconviction that in brotherhood and union is their strength and\nhappiness,--contrive to find fresh united activities, and transfer to\nnew bodies their public spirit and power of co-operation. Their college,\ntheir regiment, their football club, their work with young employes,\ntheir parish, their town--something is found into which they can throw\nthemselves. And again and again I have watched how this has become a\nreligion, a binding and elevating and educating power in the mind of\nyoung men; and again and again, too, I have noticed how without it men\nlose interest, lose growth and greatness; individualism creeps on them,\nhalf their nature is stunted. For the individual life is only half the\nlife; and even that cannot be the rich and full and glorious thing it\nmight be, unless it is enlarged on all sides, and rests on a wide social\nsympathy and love.\n\nBut how is it for girls when they leave school? It is distinctly harder\nfor you to find lines of united action. Society tends to individualize\nyoung ladies; its ideal for them is elegant inaction and graceful\nwaiting, to an extent infinitely beyond what it is for young men. You do\nnot find at your homes ready-made associations to join, or even an\nobvious possibility of doing anything for anybody. And so I have\nwitnessed generous and fine school-girl natures dwarfed, cabined,\nconfined; cheated of the activities which they had learned to desire to\nexercise, becoming individualistic, and therefore commonplace; not\nwithout inward fury and resistance, secret remonstrance, but concealing\nit all under the impassive manner which society demands.\n\nSomething is wrong: and your generation is finding this out, and finding\nout also its cure. Year by year greater liberty of action is open to\neducated women; and educated women are themselves seeing, and others are\nseeing for them, that they have a part to play in the world which none\nothers can play; if they do not play it, then work, indispensable to the\ngood of society, and therefore to their own good, is undone. I say to\n_their own good_, for we all want happiness: but happiness is not won by\nseeking for it. Make up your minds on this point, that there are certain\nthings only to be got by not aiming directly at them. Aim, for example,\nat being influential, and you become a prig; aim at walking and posing\ngracefully, and you become an affected and ludicrous object; aim even at\nbreathing quite regularly, and you fail.\n\nSo if you aim at happiness or self-culture or individualistic\ncompleteness, the world seems to combine to frustrate you. People,\ncircumstances, opportunities, temper, everything goes wrong; and you lay\nthe blame on everything except the one thing that is the cause of it\nall, the fact that you yourself are aiming at the wrong thing. But aim\nat making everything go well where you are; aim at using this treasure\nof life that God has given you for helping lame dogs over stiles, for\nmaking schools, households, games, parishes, societies, sick-rooms,\ngirls' clubs, what not?--run more smoothly; wake every morning with the\nthought what can I do to-day to oil the wheels of my little world; and\nbehold people, circumstances, opportunities, temper, even health, all\nget into a new adjustment, and all combine to fill your life with\ninterests, warmth, affection, culture, and growth: you will find it\ntrue: good measure, shaken down, heaped together, and running over,\nshall men give into your bosoms.\n\nAh! but _what_ can one do? It is so hard to find out the right thing.\nYes; and no possible general rule can be given. You must fix the ideal\nin your mind, and be sure that in some way or other openings will arise.\nI will not touch life at school; you know more about that than I do, and\nperhaps need not that I should speak of public spirit, and generous\ntemper, and the united life. I will only say that a girl who does not\nthrow herself into school life with the generous wish to give pleasure\nand to lift the tone around her, does not get more than a fraction of\nthe good that a school life like this can give, and does not do her\nduty. I speak of later years alone. And in the first instance, and\nalways in the first place, stand the claims of home. I dare say you\nremember the young lady who wanted to go and learn nursing in a\nhospital, and was asked by the doctor why she desired this. \"Father is\nparalysed,\" she said, \"and mother is nearly blind, and my sisters are\nall married, and it is so dull at home; so I thought I should like\nnursing.\" I don't want you to emulate that young person. Grudge no love\nand care at home: no one can give such happiness to parents, brothers,\nsisters, as you can, and to make people happy is in itself a worthy\nmission; it is the next best thing to making them good. And remember\nalso, that there are many years before you: and that though it may seem\nthat years are spent with nothing effected except that somehow things\nhave gone more smoothly, you yourself will have been matured, deepened,\nand consolidated by a life of duty, in a way in which no self-chosen\npath of life could have trained you. And if, as is quite possible, some\nof you are impatient already for the exercise of your powers in some\ngreat work, I will preach patience to you from another motive. It is\nthis: that you are not yet capable of doing much that is useful, from\nwant of training and general ability. I remember Miss Octavia Hill once\nsaying that she could get any quantity of money, and any quantity of\nenthusiasm, but that her difficulty was to get trained intelligence,\neither in men or women. So, a few days ago, Miss Clementina Black, who\nis Hon. Secretary of the Women's Trade Association, said to a friend of\nmy own that she had had many voluntary lady helpers of various degrees\nof education and culture, and that she had found without exception that\nthe highly educated students were the most fitted to do the work well;\nthat they alone were capable of the patience, accuracy, and attention\nto detail which were one essential quality to the doing of such work,\nand that they alone could provide the other essentials, which can only\nspring from a cultivated mind--viz., wideness of view, sense of\nproportion, and capacity for general interest in other important\nquestions--social, literary, and intellectual. \"It is this cultivation\nof mind which prevents you from being crushed under the difficulty and\ntedium and disappointment which must attend every effort to teach\nprinciples and promote ideal aims among the mass of ignorant, apathetic,\nuninterested, and helpless working women, who must themselves in the\nlast resort be the agents in bringing about a better condition of\nindustry.\"\n\nYou may rest assured that if you set your mind on a career of splendid\nusefulness for your fellows (and I hope every one of you here aims at\nthis), then you will need all the training that the highest and most\nprolonged education can give you. Become the most perfect creature you\nhave it in your power to become. If Oxford or Cambridge are open to\nyou, welcome the opportunity, and use the extra power they will give\nyou. If not, then utilise the years that lie before you, in perfecting\nyour accomplishments, in self-education; in interesting and informing\nyourself on social questions, in enlarging your horizon, while you\ncheerfully, happily, brilliantly perform _all_ your home duties.\n\nAnd during this period of preparation which you all must go through,\nremember that there are some things which you can do better in your\ninexperience and ignorance than any other people. How is this? Tell me\nwhy it would be more comfort, and do more good sometimes to a poor sick\nwoman to bring her a few primroses or daffodils than to give her any\nsubstantial relief. The reason is the same. The very freshness and\ninnocence of young faces, that sympathise without having the faintest\nsuspicion of the sin and misery of the world, is more refreshing and\nhelpful than the stronger sympathy of one who really knows all the evil.\nYou can be primroses and daffodils, and give glimpses into a purer\nworld of love and gentleness and peace.\n\nAnd if a prolonged training is impossible to you, it is often possible\nfor you to assist in some humble capacity some lady who is so engaged in\nwork on a scale which you could not yourself touch. Be her handmaid and\nfag and slave, and so gradually train yourself to become capable of\nindependent action.\n\nBut to sum up all I am saying it amounts to this--Where there's a will\nthere's a way, and I want you to have the will.\n\nDid you ever think for what reason you should have had such a splendid\ntime of it in your lives? Not two girls in a thousand are getting such\nan education as you are, such varied studies, such vigorous public\nschool life, such historic associations. And why? Because you are better\nthan others? I think not. It is that you play your part in the great\nsocial organism our national life; hundreds are toiling for us, digging,\nspinning, weaving, mining, building, navigating, that we may have\nleisure for the thought, the love, the wisdom that shall lighten and\ndirect their lives. You cannot dissociate yourselves from the labouring\nmasses, and in particular from the women and girls of England. They are\nyour sisters; and a blight and a curse rests on you if you ignore them,\nand grasp at all the pleasures and sweetness and cultivation of your\nlife with no thought or toil for them. Their lives are the foundations\non which ours rest. It is horrible in one class to live without this\nconsciousness of a mutual obligation, and mutual responsibility. All\nthat we get, we get on trust, as trustee for them. I remember that\nThring says somewhere, that \"no beggar who creeps through the street\nliving on alms and wasting them is baser than those who idly squander at\nschool and afterwards the gifts received on trust.\"\n\nI know that our class education isolates us and separates us from the\nuneducated and common people as we call them, makes us perhaps regard\nthem as uninteresting, even repellent. Part of what we hope from the\ngirls who come from great schools like this is, that they shall have a\nlarger sympathy, a truer heart. Remember all your life long a saying of\nAbraham Lincoln's, when he was President of the United States. Some one\nremarked in his hearing that he was quite a common-looking man.\n\"Friend,\" he replied, gently, \"the Lord loves common-looking people\nbest; that is why He has made so many of them.\"\n\nYou can all make a _few_ friends out of the lower class; you cannot do\nmuch; but learn to know and love a few, and then you will do wider good\nthan you suspect.\n\nBut you are beginning to ask--Is all this religion? You expected\nsomething else. Let me remind you of the man who came to Jesus Christ,\nand asked Him what he should do to obtain eternal life. And this\nquestion, I may explain, means--What shall I do that I may enter on that\ndivine and higher life now while I live; how can I most fully develop my\nspiritual nature? And the answer was--Love God; and love your neighbour\nas yourself. Go outside yourself in love to all that is divine and ideal\nin thought and duty; go outside yourself in love to your neighbour--and\nyour neighbour is every one with whom you have any relation; and then,\nand then alone, does your own nature grow to its highest and best. This\nis the open secret of true religion.\n\nEastertide is the teacher of ideals. Its great lesson is--\"If ye were\nraised together with Christ, seek the things that are above.\" If by\ncalling yourself a Christian you mean that you aim at the higher, the\nspiritual, the divine life, then think of things that are above. [Greek:\nTa ano phroneite], think heaven itself. And heaven lies around us in our\ndaily life--not in the cloister, in incense-breathing aisle, in\ndevotions that isolate us, and force a sentiment unreal, morbid, and\neven false, but in the generous and breathing activities of our life.\nReligion glorifies, because it idealizes, that very life we are each\ncalled on to lead. Look, therefore, round in your various lives and\nhomes, and ask yourselves what is the ideal life for me here, in this\nposition, as school-girl, daughter, sister, friend, mistress, or in any\nother capacity. Education ought to enable you to frame an ideal; it\nought to give you imagination, and sympathy, and intelligence, and\nresource; and religion ought to give you the strong motive, the\nendurance, the width of view, the nobleness of purpose, to make your\nlife a light and a blessing wherever you are.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 3: An Address given to St. Leonard's School, St. Andrews, on\nSunday, April 13, 1890.]","title":"Three Addresses to Girls at School","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":11576}