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<title> "Why spoil a mood mother to make an ordinary grammarian?": Nineteenth Century Attitudes to Female Education </title>
In the modern society of today women's education is not a burning issue, it goes without saying that education is a good thing for both men and women. But it is not necessary to look further back than to the nineteenth century to find a time when the issue of women and education was much debated. In this essay I will outline some of the arguments used for and against formal education of girls and women during the nineteenth century. I will start with the arguments for, which in my material are much less frequent than the arguments against, which will show in my essay. I will then continue with arguments that were raised against formal education, which I have divided into four categories depending of type of argument.
	 In the 1830s and 1840s demands for formal education for some women were raised by the middle-classes. The demand was not made to improve the situation for women in general but to raise education-standards for boys taught by governesses (Brittain p.21). The next argument was used to promote education for all women. A formal education was seen as a way to solve the problem with women's inherent imperfections such as their "tendency to err" (Burstyn p. 73). The last argument is that women should be educated to be of better use for society. In the early nineteenth century feminists believed that unmarried middle-class women should be educated for that purpose, and in the later part of the century the same demands were made for working-class girls who then would make better servants (Brittain p.21-22). 
	 As I mentioned above the arguments against formal education are the most frequent ones. The first category of arguments are the ones which have to do with social roles. These are arguments that were raised throughout the century, and they show how important the issue was. Ellis wrote, in 1838, that women should keep within their sphere, which contains certain duties and occupations (p. 70) such as motherhood. Men and women were said to have different missions in life and to step over the boundaries was not taken lightly, as this quotation from the late 1860's shows: "We believe that to apply the same systems of education and training to both sexes alike, and to open the same paths for both, would be to act in defiance of natural laws" (Burstyn p. 75). In the 1880's it was believed that a dissolution of the separate spheres would lead to a revolution between the sexes (Burstyn p. 27). It was also believed that higher education for women would destroy the perception and ideal of motherhood (Burstyn p. 28). The arguments in this category all stems from the assumption that women's role in society was already set and should not be changed. The next category take a different approach to the issue.
	 The second category is made up of arguments that state that formal education promotes qualities that women should not have and offer knowledge that women cannot use. These are arguments that were brought forward in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was argued that there was no point in going to school since the women would hardly ever use what they had learned there. The schools were not thought to prepare women for the duties of their sphere (Ellis p. 70). Ellis wrote: "There is but a very small proportion of the daughters of farmers, manufacturers and trades-people, in England, who are ever called upon for their Latin," (p. 82). Ellis also considered formal education as wrong since the schools did not promote unselfishness and a woman's duty to give place to others which were a woman's finest qualities (p. 71). She believed that there were no better teachers than the mothers and the place to be taught at was the home (p. 333). To become a good mother it was necessary to be taught at home where the desired qualities were found.
	 Again the following category is different from the previous one. The third category contains arguments against formal education based on medical reasons primarily, these were raised in the middle of the nineteenth century. This is another aspect Ellis commented upon, ackording to her no girl that go to school remains healthy (p.72). Ellis also claimed that the physical problems made the woman useless to her family since the problems made her concentrate to much on herself (p. 328). It was also believed that education caused mental fatigue which could make women infertile (Burstyn p.80). 
The fourth, and last, category of arguments contains those which question women's intelligence, this kind of argument existed for the greatest part of the century. Women's intellect was considered to be inferior to men's, not at all capable of long thoughts (Burstyn p. 71). It was also argued that women had a lack of creativity which meant that they would never be able to break new ground. Women were thought unable to even understand men's creativity (Burstyn p.73). Women could never be anything but ordinary within their field of education. In this, the nineteenth century, many studies were made on the human brain and the results of these were interpreted by some as an explanation to women's alledged inferiority to men (Burstyn p. 78). It was discovered that the size and structure of male and female brains were different and therefore it was argued by some that formal education could never be of value for women (Burstyn p. 80).
	 In this essay I have outlined some of the arguments that were raised for and against formal education for women during the nineteenth century. As is obvious in the essay the arguments against were much more frequent than those for. Those who argued for it basically claimed that it would be good for society since it would make women more useful and less imperfect. Those who were against it believed that womens place in society was to be mothers, that education would spoil women's healt and therefore enable them to be mothers, that nothing taught at school could be of any use for women and finally that women were intellectually inadequate which meant that education would be wasted on them.
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