HIGHER EDUCATION WOMEN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1109, 3 August 1883, Page 3

HIGHER EDUCATION WOMEN.

" Civie " in Di's Passing Notes (published in the Odgu Witness) has the following:— " Why dues the lady who writes leite s of tempestuous elouquenee to the Daily Times on the " Higher Education of i Women " subscribe her name in the unusual form, " Mrs J. C. Cbapple." "Mr" or " Mrs" looks as odd in a signature as in a i tombstone inscription—where its use, however (in America at least), threatens to bee mie fashionable A recent explorer reports that he read in a Philadelphia gi-aveya'd— "To the memory of Mr William ■Smith, aged 1 year." Perhaps Mrs J. U. Chappie's style is intended to illustrate the results of the '"f'ee convent schools," which scheme invites the Government to establish ; perhaps the " Mrs" hints of where, in the fu ure, we are to look fo.' the real head of the house. Mrs Chappie's moral aims as a reformer are commendable, but heaven save us from the kind of women ' she off os us as the pro.luct of her " higher education !" Women, Mrs C. a,tirm3, are not designed in Nature's plan to cook and wash, to m ike and mend. That is a onm« mon but deplorable er or. Such tasks are for men. Hear Mrs Chappie : As a cook, women has failed to excel. [True for you, Mrs C.,—she has failed, - brilliantly! I would myself undertake, moi qui t» his parle, to grill a chop as no woman could. A woman's native instinct is ti stew chops in a trying pan,—ugh !] As a seamstress she has failed. Although s ie displayed her ingenuity in coll. c ing materials for a dress out of fig-leaves [ urs C.'s history i wrong here], min as a tailor excels her. As a laundress, beside man she is nowhere. Nature hiving thus indicated that man is to cook bis own meals, mead his own stock ing*, md scrub his own shirt, as sailois scrub their trousers, the question naturally a-ises— What on earth did Nature m an woman to do f Hear Mrs Ch apple again : Toe wife should be able, if need there be, to soak from star to star in search of a new ii'auet; to dive with him into the depths of ocean in search of some rare coral; to unravel with him, as far as possible, the laws which govern the universe. As if foaring from star to star and diving into the depths of ocean were not enough, Mrs C. proposes further that worn in should " gain facility with the pen," and turn her attention to public speaking.'— The world has not yet produced a female Demosthenes [appalling suggestion !] but when it does then is Jacob's ladder p,anted firmly on earth, the topmost rung of which will reach unto heaven. Majestic indeed is the destiny of woman, if we may believe Mrs Chappie. One pressing question, however, still remains : Who it to produce the babifs! Possibly Mrs Chappie's scneuie does not contemp.ate the existence of babies.