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<title> WHY SPOIL A GOOD MOTHER TO MAKE AN ORDINARY GRAMMARIAN </title>
At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century women in Britain, and most of the western world, got only a simple education that did not give her book knowledge but rather ways to behave with her future husband and in their home. Young women were not taught how to raise children, an occupation that would dominate her future. She was educated by her mother who had been taught by her mother. At home young girls got a wider insight in their future life than they would at the few private schools for girls. It needs to be mentioned that it was only the higher classes that educated their daughters, the lower classes could not afford it.
When the middle and upper classes wanted their daughters to have an education they most often would hire a governess to teach them. Governesses were not very efficient though, since most governesses also were undereducated. It was probably this that was the start of the movement for better education for women. The upcoming middle class wanted well educated governesses for their daughters to compensate their lesser backgrounds. The founding of colleges for women started in the 1840s, with among others the Queen's College in London. They offered a series of lectures to improve the quality of governesses and provide them with a certificate proving that knowledge. Another college that was founded at this time was the Ladies' College, at Bedford square, London. These were both good but not equal to men's.
The normal education for a young woman was not so much letters and numbers as it was painting, music and needlework. Young girls sometimes were sent to a school in their early teens but not for long and only if the family could afford it. They came after boys on the scale of importance and most young daughters often were sentenced to stay at home when the money ran out.
The women's education movement had problems though. The resistance against educating women was strong. Even the people who agreed that women should be better educated did not want them to be educated like men. Men were seen as better equipped to handle the strain of longer education, they had better stamina.
The group opposing the idea of educated women was large though, mostly consisting of upper class men but also a few women opposed the idea of an educated woman. The opposing side had many arguments why women were not meant to be educated. All summed up they all led to one thing, that highly educated women would change the unconscious image of womanhood forever. They declared that education would turn women into satires of men, this fact abhorred many traditional men during the nineteenth century. They did not want their women to turn into one of the disreputable blue socks.
They had weaker minds, as they lacked physical strength they also lacked the stamina needed to follow through with an education. Women were considered to be irrational when they used their hearts to steer their minds and draw their conclusions. A woman was a delicate being and se should not have to be put through such a strain as higher education. It was a well known fact that intelligent women had some kind of deformity and therefore many intelligent women kept quiet out of fear of not being able to find suitable partners for marriage. It was also said to be a fact that women, being the delicate things they are, could become barren by having too much knowledge.
The opposers to also said that females had no creative vein, even though some had been renowned as novelists. There had never been lack of opportunity for a female 'Mozart' or 'da Vincis' to develop but they had never, this fact gave the idea that women lacked the feeling for the aesthetics. The men gave them credit for being sensitive but this did not give women the artistic feeling. 
One of the largest reasons that was brought up against education for women came after Charles Darwin had presented his theory on the evolution of man. A big scientific branch involving the seize of the brain developed. Some of these scientists concluded that the female brain was smaller than that of men. The male brain had developed further from the apes than a woman's. "... showed that women's brains were more childlike in character and less developed." (quote taken from page 78 of J. Burstyn's 'Victorian Education and the Ideal of Womanhood')
A man's brain was also larger than women's which resulted in a greater intelligence. This idea came to a slow descent when it was pointed out that if a bigger brain meant more intelligence then a whale or an elephant would be more intelligent than mankind. It was still said that a woman's brain could not cope with the strain of education and the weight of knowledge.
The female educational revolution came at the beginning of the nineteenth century as a result of the rising middle class. The governesses that were available at this time most often did not have an education of their own and therefore a demand for a governess school rose. At the middle of the eighteen hundreds a number of schools were founded with the purpose to give a general governess certificate. This movement met strong resistance from many people, both men and women. They came up with all kinds of reasons such as women being to weak or that their brains were smaller an less developed than the mans. All the arguments came down to one thing; what ever happened the picture of womanhood would be forever changed.
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