Educating women

Added today: Intellectual education and its influence on the character and happiness of women, by Emily Shirreff (new edition, 1862). Which has some fascinating chapter-titles: 'Education of girls more difficult than that of boys' ; 'Value of even slight acquaintance with mathematics' ; 'Variety of pursuit desirable on many accounts for women' ; 'Promising element in the character of obstinate children' ; 'Girls should be prepared for the trials of delicate health' ; 'Danger of exciting pleasure' ; 'Frivolity not confined to the fashionable' ; 'This system encourages thoughtless marriages'. Which is undoubtedly an unrepresentative selection, and very unfair on a woman who was briefly Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, and an early champion of the view that women were quite capable of being highly educated; she gave a copy of her book on the education of women to Frances Power Cobbe, who in turn gave it to Somerville.