Page:Marriage as a Trade.djvu/54

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MARRIAGE AS A TRADE

The taste and requirements of the average man of her class having been definitely ascertained, her training and education was carried on on the principle of cultivating those qualities which he was likely to admire, and repressing with an iron hand those qualities to which he was likely to take objection; in short, she was fitted for her trade by the discouragement of individuality and eccentricity and the persistent moulding of her whole nature into the form which the ordinary husband would desire it to take. Her education, unlike her brothers', was not directed towards self-development and the bringing out of natural capabilities, but towards pleasing some one else—was not for her own benefit, but for that of another person.

No one has better expressed the essential difference between the education of men and women than Mr. John Burns in a speech delivered to the "Children of the State" at the North Surrey District School on February 13, 1909. Addressing the boys the President of the Local Government Board said, "I want you to be happy craftsmen, because you are trained to be healthy men." Addressing the