Education for girls

Even before there were any academic schools for girls, some young women yearned for an education. As Gillian Avery has noted  

The first controversy was that of the most appropriate type of secondary education for girls whether the educational content should involve academic subjects, or simply focus on those 

Lydia Becker made the contrary case in 1869, arguing that a training in science would be particularly beneficial for girls  

Prevalent opinions and customs impose on women so much more monotonous and colourless lives, and deprive them of so much of the natural and healthy excitement enjoyed by the other sex in its free intercourse with the world. .. many women might be saved from the evil of the life of intellectual vacuity, to which their present position renders them so peculiarly liable, if they had a thorough training in some branch of science, and the opportunity of carrying it on as a serious pursuit.5 

There was no dispute about education for working-class girls. The aim was simple to prepare them for marriage and children in the context of religious devotion. The possibility of any further aspirations was firmly dismissed in this comment of 1861  

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But the fervour for science education for girls seems to have abated in the early decades of the 20th century. In 1912, the Headmistress of Sacred Heart School, Hammersmith, described how the educational reforms of the later decades of the 19th century had emphasised the teaching of natural science. She added ... 

Throughout the later 19th and early 20th centuries, there was an ambivalence about the purpose of an academic education for girls.59 Should the school topics be aimed at the majority who... 

Manthorpe, C. (1986). Science or domestic science The struggle to define an appropriate science education for girls in early 20th century England. History of Education 15 195-213. 

From the early 19th century, education for girls, either at day or boarding school, was centred around the three cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen. The offering of specific subjects by individual teachers at their homes was a particular feature of the age, as Mrs. Furlong commented in 1855 ... 

Worldwide illiteracy rates have consistently declined in the last few decades. One of the major reasons for this decline is the sharp increase of literacy rates among young women, which is a result of specific campaigns designed to increase educational opportunities for girls. However, there are still an estimated 771 million illiterate adults in the world, about two-thirds of who are women. 

A leading exponent of domestic science for girls was Arthur Smithells, Professor of Chemistry at Leeds University (see Chap. 5). Smithells was part of the Science for All movement, which was concerned with the low level of scientific awareness among the general population.61 Members of the Movement contended that humanisation of science was the answer, in which scientific principles were related to people s daily lives. Smithells saw domestic science as a means of bringing an applied aspect that would, in particular, be appropriate in the education of girls. 

Burstall, S. A. (1933). Retrospect and Prospect Sixty Years of Women s Education. Longmans, Green, London. See also Burstall, S. A. (1911). The Story of the Manchester High School for Girls. Manchester University Press, Manchester. 

Bryce Commission, Vol. IX, pp. 428-429, cited in Manthorpe, C. (1993). Science education in the public schools for girls in the late nineteenth century. In Walford, G. (ed.), The Private Schooling of Girls Past and Present, Woburn Press, London, p. 70. 

White, J. (1914). Correspondence Science for girls. Journal of Education 36 698. 

Florence Mary Wood87 was educated at Bournemouth Collegiate School for Girls and the Municipal Technical College, Bournemouth. She obtained a B.Sc. in botany from the... 

Helen Kemp Archbold,84 born in 1899, was educated at Clifton High School for Girls, Bristol, and entered Bedford College in 1917. Graduating in 1921, she obtained one of the places reserved for women in Jocelyn Thorpe s organic chemistry... 

Of all the university chemistry professors, it was Arthur Smithells,48 Chair of Chemistry at Leeds from 1885 until 1923,49 who had been most active in promoting the science education of girls (see Chap. 1). The explanation for his interest dates back to his last days at Owens College, Manchester, before his appointment at Yorkshire College ... 

A couple of years behind Seward and Watson was Mary Florence Rich. Rich72 was bom on 18 October 1865, the daughter of Thomas Rich, and she was educated at Haberdashers Aske s Hatcham School for Girls. In 1884, she too entered Somerville as a Clothworkers Scholar. Seward coached Rich in physics and... 

Moore, L. (2003). Young ladies institutions The development of secondary schools for girls in Scotland, 1833-C.1870. History of Education 32(3) 249-272. 

Stephenson was educated by a governess until the age of 12, at which point she received a scholarship to attend the Berkhampsted High School for Girls. It was her mother who insisted that Stephenson obtain a university education, and that Newnham was the appropriate place. She attended Newnham from 1903 until 1906, taking the Part I Natural Sciences Tripos in chemistry, physiology, and zoology. 

McKie was on bom 18 July 1893, the daughter of William McKie, Clerk at the Pemyhyn Quarry Office. She was educated at the County School for Girls, Bangor, and entered the University College of Wales, Bangor, in 1912. McKie completed her B.Sc. in 1916, and was awarded an M.Sc. by research on the basis of her war work. A total of 12 publications resulted from the different directions of war research which she initiated at Bangor. 

VI High School for Girls (KEVI), Birmingham, and then obtained her university education at Newnham between 1897 and 1901. 

One of the first beneficiaries of ICI s reversal of its opposition to women researchers was Jesse Dorehill Crampton Mole.97 Mole, daughter of Ernest Mole, a retired police officer, was educated at Notre Dame High School, Clapham, and the City of London School for Girls. She entered Bedford in 1934, graduating with a B.Sc. in chemistry in 1936. 

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