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 In today's society, equal education for men and women is unquestioned, but this was not the case at the beginning of the last century. The only education for girls provided was that by governesses or at boarding schools with a homelike atmosphere. The girls, mainly from upper class, were taught music, conversation and other subjects "suitable for ornamental young ladies whose careers lay in marriage" (21). During the century this form of education began to be questioned and a demand for equal education to take form. Not everyone approved of this striving towards equal education for men and women and an opposition working against it arose. In this essay, I will present some of the arguments against and for formal education for girls and women.
Many people, both men and women were against formal education for women. They believed that women were both mentally and physically unfit for it. It was believed that men and women differed from birth and that "the two types of intellect were constructed for different purposes" (15). Women had the powers of imagination, memory and quickness of perception whereas men had the powers of sustained thought judgement and creativeness" (16). Women's minds were inferior to men and they would never be able to compete at the same terms. It was said that women lacked the ability to gain knowledge through schooling. They were not capable of long earnest thoughts and had a lack of depth. The inferiority of the woman brain was examined through comparative measures of brains from men and women. These measures showed that women's brains were smaller and lighter than men's were, which was believed to be a prove of less intelligence. Since women were proved less intelligent than men are there was no point in spending a lot of money on formal education for them. Instead "they should be trained to perform their own duties with excellence" (16).
Furthermore, formal education for women was seen as a risk to their health. Education could make them weary, weak, and, more important, incapable of producing children. This would mean that girls who went to school would end up loosing their most important ability: to be the mothers of the next generation of Englishmen.
Another main argument was that schools taught girls things they would have no use for, whatsoever, in the life to come. Sarah Ellis wrote in her book The Women of England that the schools taught a girl how to "raise herself above her companions" (1) whereas the after life demanded of her to "give place to others, to think of their happiness, and to make sacrifices of her own to promote it" (1). The sufficient knowledge of how to behave and how to take care of a family was believed to be better taught at home. The girls could learn the appropriate values and skills from their mothers. Sarah Ellis wrote, "the education of a women...should be one which would fit her for filling the place and discharging the duties of a women" (5). Moreover, girls were often needed at home to help their mother with her daily duties.
Those who believed in formal education for women were divided into two groups. One of these groups believed that women's minds were inferior to men's but still felt that women had the right to education, "That women, within their own sphere, should be trained to competence" (13). Their main arguments for formal education were that women should be educated in order to be good wives and to be able to pass some of their knowledge on to their sons.
The other group was the feminists. They did not believe in mans innate superiority and tried to prove this in different ways. They claimed that the differences between the sexes were due "to women's lack of education and the narrowness of their lives" (15). One feminist, Emily Davis did an experiment in the late 1860's to prove their point. She established a women's college where women undertook the same courses, at the same amount of time, as male students at other colleges. This experiment was successful but questioned by their opponents. People did not think that women should be supposed to work as hard as men do. The feminists also challenged the theory that a larger brain meant higher intelligence. They got this supported by John Stuart Mill who wrote "an elephant or a whale must prodigiously excel mankind" (19). However, Mill did believe in man's innate superiority and was not at all a feminist. 
 Another argument was that the times had changed and that more and more of the middle class women needed to work. To get a decent work, suitable for a woman, they needed education. 
As a conclusion, the nineteenth century were a century when women were looked up on as beautiful creatures that were supposed to be good company to their husbands and good mothers for their children. They did not need any formal education as their true duties lay in marriage and family. All they needed to know was how to behave and how to take care of a household and they could easily learn this from their mothers. But this was also a century of progress, an awareness of the need for formal education for women was starting to spread and women were given more freedom to think and express their opinions. At the end of the century, several women's colleges had opened and women could be admitted to universities. A lot had happened even if the belief that higher education would destroy womanhood remained in many people's minds.
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