Part 7

THE AGE LIMIT FOR WOMEN.

December, 1899.

“Rather than remain braced and keen to watch the world accurately and take every appearance on its own merits, the lazy intellect declines upon generalizations, formalized rules and Laws of Nature.”

--“Idlehurst, a Journal kept in the Country.”

Every reader of the educational journals must be familiar with the typical advertisement that “The Council of the ---- High School for Girls will shortly appoint a Headmistress. No one over 35 need apply.” The restriction produces an effect on assistant mistresses very prejudicial to the interests of education. Girls after a three or four years’ University course, followed in some cases by a year in a Training College, have hardly settled down to the practical business of their lives in the high schools before they are seized with a nervous fear that if they do not shortly bestir themselves in the competition for headmistress-ships they will before long be stranded on this old-time superstition. Their youth and inexperience are facts constantly brought before them up to the age of thirty or thereabouts, and then with hardly an interval they find themselves confronted by this theory of sudden decay of faculties in women. During the second five years of teaching there is a constant agitation among young mistresses in the endeavour to secure a headship, and then amongst those who fail in the lottery--for it is a lottery--comes the deadening prospect of, perhaps, a quarter of a century’s work to be carried on without hope of promotion.

It may be useful to consider the origin of this “formalised rule” that women are unfit to undertake serious responsibility after the age of thirty-five.

The rule--an advance, no doubt, on the eighteenth-century habit of referring to men and women of forty or fifty as “aged”--became stereotyped at least as early as the middle of this century. Unmarried ladies regarded as on the shelf at twenty-five were forced to let their faculties die for want of exercise. The freshness was drained out of them by the pressure of trivialities unresisted by hope. Those who entered the labour market did so as victims of cruel misfortune, full of pity for themselves and quickly worn out by their struggles to gain a livelihood with few qualifications for the task.

During the last twenty years a very striking change has made itself apparent. In some branches the extension of the working period of a woman’s life has been so great that it has even brought back to useful, hopeful enterprise women who had settled down to the colourless, dreary, monotonous round prescribed for the unattached elderly. The number of educated women who either earn a livelihood or engage in philanthropic work has not increased so much as is usually supposed, but the spirit in which the work is undertaken is wholly different. Not that it is in all respects a praiseworthy one. The disinterestedness of the saint is perhaps lacking. Indeed, what I wish to lay stress on as a fact for which to be thankful is that the period of youthful interestedness has been very greatly extended.

In fiction our women writers have long since abandoned sweet seventeen as a heroine, and even men writers, slowest of all to observe such changes, have, during the last five years or so, recognised that at that favoured age girls are nowadays too much absorbed in preparing for senior locals and college entrance examinations to offer useful material for romantic literature.

Not a few of our veterans shake their heads over what I have called the extension of youthfulness, but what they call the prolongation of childish irresponsibility. The crudeness of the girl-graduate of two or three and twenty is contrasted unfavourably with the finished manners and graceful maturity of the girl of eighteen some forty years ago. And there would be much to be urged in support of their disapproval if, with the raising of the age-limit of a girl’s systematised education, there were no corresponding rise in the age-limit of her usefulness and energy. If the prime of life were necessarily passed at an age fixed for all time, so that the time spent in preparation for work was deducted from the time available for work itself, it might fairly be doubted whether our modern system of education was not positively harmful.

But there is no such fixity in the age at which maturity is attained, and there is reason to believe that as each generation takes longer to arrive at maturity, owing to much more careful attention to mental and physical development, so also each generation retains the possession of its mature powers for a longer period than the preceding one.

Reflecting on this possibility and comparing modern systems of education with those prevailing a century ago, it will be noticed that in those days girls became wives and mothers before they had time to realise the joy of youth; that children were introduced to society too soon to have indulged in the delightful exercise of imagination, untouched by responsibility; and that toddling babies must have been taught to theorise on moral problems, judging by the period at which some of them attained to a reasoned self-control.

Looking back, too, with curiosity, to the methods by which this precocious maturity of judgment was produced, it is interesting to note the changes in the school curriculum apparent at different periods, and the absence of those subjects which, in our day, we regard as preliminary to education, and which yet require more years for their mastery than were necessary a hundred years ago for the mastery of feminine accomplishments and the acquisition of fixed moral principles.

It is those fixed moral principles that form the most marked characteristic of the eighteenth-century child. Of religious teaching there was strikingly little; religious fervour is almost entirely absent from the literature of the period. But moral teaching was, so far as girls were concerned, the only branch of study in which they were called to exercise their reason.

We are all of us apt to imagine that the writers of children’s books in the last century had so little artistic faculty as to be constantly writing a language which no human being could ever have indulged in, in real life. But, in fact, these prematurely grown-up girls were never called on to exercise their intelligence on any subject except morals. They were twice as old as our children of the same age, but their brains were less accustomed to exercise than those of our infants in the kindergarten nowadays. The style in vogue was a natural result.

Daniel Defoe, in his “Tour through Great Britain,” describes the domestic system in the woollen industry in the West Riding at the beginning of the eighteenth century with glowing enthusiasm. I quote, from the edition of 1759, the account of the trade in Halifax and the surrounding district. After describing the scenery, he goes on:

“Nor is the industry of the people wanting to second these advantages. Though we met few people without doors, yet within we saw the houses full of lusty fellows, some at the dye vat, some at the loom, others dressing the cloth; the women and children carding or spinning; all employed from the youngest to the oldest; scarce anything above four years old but its hands were sufficient for its own support.”

There are other instances of a similar kind in other parts of the book. It is to him a delightful thing that there should be work enough for these little four-year-old mites to be able to relieve their parents from the burden of their support.

Clearly, then, children were not allowed to be children for long in those days. And some of the stories to which I shall refer are not quite so ridiculous as we may have imagined. We have accused the writers of talking in an absurdly grown-up manner to little children. It was really the little children who were absurdly grown up in real life, not merely in fiction.

Take as an instance the story of “Jemima Placid,” written some time between 1770 and 1790. I quote the prologue:

“As I had nothing particular to do, I took a walk one morning as far as St. James’s Park, where meeting with a lady of my acquaintance, she invited me to go home with her to breakfast; which invitation I accordingly complied with. Her two daughters had waited for her a considerable time, and expressed themselves to have been much disturbed at her stay. They afterwards fretted at the heat of the weather; and the youngest, happening accidentally to tear her apron, she bewailed it the succeeding part of the day with so much appearance of vexation, that I could not help showing some degree of astonishment at her conduct; and having occasion afterwards to mention Miss Placid, I added that she was the most agreeable girl I had ever known.

“Miss Eliza, to whom I was speaking, said that she had long wished to hear something further concerning that young lady, as her mamma very frequently proposed her as an example without mentioning the particulars of her conduct; but as I was so happy as to be favoured with her intimacy, she should be glad to hear a recital of those excellences which acquired such universal approbation.

“In compliance with this request I wrote the following sheets and dispatched them to Miss Eliza, and by her desire it is that they are now submitted to the world; as she obligingly assured me that her endeavours to imitate the calm disposition of the heroine of this history had contributed so much to her own happiness, and increased the good opinion of her friends, that she wished to have so amiable an example made public for the advantage of others.”

And then we are given the life of Miss Jemima Placid at the age of six, and in particular of her first visit from home to her cousins, Miss Nelly and Miss Sally Piner, aged nine and eight years respectively.

The incidents of the story are of the kind that would happen to children of six or seven nowadays. But the moral teaching is representative of the ethical teaching of the time. The importance of ease of manner and good deportment in society is constantly being urged:

“Jemima, who had not seen her cousins since she was two years old, had entirely forgotten them; and, as they expected to find her as much a baby as at their last interview, they appeared like entire strangers to each other. They welcomed their papa and mamma, and looked at Miss Placid with silent amazement: both parties, indeed, said the civil things they were desired, such as, ‘How do you do, cousin?’ rather in a low and drawling tone of voice; and Miss Sally, who was eight years old, turned her head on one side and hung on her papa’s arm, though he tried to shake her off and desired her to welcome Miss Placid to London, and to say she was glad to see her, to inquire after her papa, mamma, and brothers, and, in short, to behave politely and receive her in a becoming manner. To do this, however, Mr. Piner found was impossible, as his daughters were not at any time distinguished by the graces, and were always particularly awkward, from their shyness, at a first introduction. In this place, my dear Eliza, you must excuse me if I stop to hint at a like error in your own conduct, and which, indeed, young ladies in general are too apt to be inattentive to; that, as first impressions are usually the strongest, it is of great consequence to impress your company with a favourable opinion of your appearance. As you are acquainted with the common forms of good breeding, you should consider that it is quite immaterial whether you address a lady you have before seen or one with whom you are unacquainted, since the compliments of civility are varied only by the circumstances of your knowledge, or the different connections of the person to whom you are speaking. When, therefore, you are in company with strangers, you should accustom yourself to say what is proper (which will be to answer any question they may ask you) without at all considering how long you have known them; and be assured that as an easy behaviour is at all times most agreeable, you will certainly please when you speak with a modest degree of freedom. Do not therefore make yourself uneasy with the idea of appearing awkward, for by that means you will defeat your wishes; but endeavour to retain your natural voice, and express yourself with the same unconcern as you do in common conversation, since every species of affectation is disagreeable, and nothing will so strongly recommend you as simplicity.”

Mrs. Placid’s exhortation on mutual forbearance to the Miss Piners, who had just emerged from a fight for a place in the window-seat, is another example of excellent forensic powers brought to bear on the education of little girls:

“‘There is great wickedness,’ replied her aunt, ‘in being so tenacious of every trifle as to disagree about it with those with whom we live, especially between brothers and sisters, who ought always to be united in affection and love; and if you now indulge your passions so that you will submit to no opposition, it will make you hated and despised by everybody and constantly unhappy in your own mind. It is impossible, my dear, to have every circumstance happen as we wish it to do; but if a disappointment could at any time justify ill-nature and petulance it would certainly be adding greatly to the unhappiness of life. And do you think, my dear, that to fight on every occasion with those who oppose you is at all consistent with the delicacy of a young lady? I dare say, when you give yourself time to reflect on the subject, you will perceive that you have been much to blame, and that whenever you have suffered yourself to be ill-natured and quarrelsome you have always been proportionably uneasy and wretched. Nothing can so much contribute to your present felicity or future peace as a good understanding and cordial affection for your sister. You will most probably be more in her company than in any other person’s, and how comfortable would it be, by every little office of kindness, to assist each other! I am sure, if you would try the experiment, you would find it much better than such churlish resistance and provoking contentions. It is by good humour and an attention to please in trifles that love is cherished and improved. If your sister wants anything, be assiduous to fetch it. If she cannot untie a knot, do it for her. If she wishes a place in the window, make room immediately. Share with her all that is given to you: conceal her faults, as you dislike your own to be observed; commend her good qualities, and never envy, but endeavour to emulate, her perfections. By this method you will ensure her regard and make yourself happy at the same time; that will give the highest pleasure to your parents, and obtain the esteem of all your acquaintance. Think of these motives, my dear girl, and resolve to exert yourself; and when you feel inclined to be angry and cross, recollect whether it will be worth while, because you have first got possession, to engage in a contest which will forfeit all these advantages. Think with yourself, Shall I lose my sister’s love or abate her regard for an orange, a plaything, or a seat? Do I not prefer making her contented, and keeping my own mind serene and placid, before the pleasure of enjoying a toy or any other thing equally trifling? Will it tire me to fetch down her cloak, or her doll, if she is in want of them? And shall I not do it in less time than it will take to dispute whose business it is to go? In short, my dear niece, you will find so much ease and pleasure result from the resolution to oblige that I dare say, if you once attempt it, you will be inclined to persevere.’