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<title> "Why spoil a good mother to make an ordinary grammarian?" Nineteenth Century Attitudes to Female Education </title>
In many countries today schooling is compulsory for children between the age of six and sixteen approximately. Many students also choose to continue their studies after they have finished the compulsory education; they go to the universities. This higher education is open to everyone, both boys and girls, and it seems obvious to most people that it should be that way. However not too long ago there was no such equality between the sexes and this for several reasons and attitudes. It was not until the nineteenth century that changes in attitudes began to take place. 

One obstacle to girls not having any formal education was child labour. Girls from the working class had to work in factories and mines; the employers preferred them because they were smaller and cheaper than men were. Also in the agrarian society this problem occurred. One child, most often a girl, had to stay at home to help her mother with her duties. Thus these girls could not go to school. Yet it was sometimes a period of lesser work and then they could join the school for a while, but as soon as they were needed at home they had to finish school.

In the upper middle class parents could afford to send their children to a boarding school or to employ a governess. Families that could not afford this could let their children go to a voluntary church school. Some families had a tendency to send their sons to a proper school, while their daughters had to be satisfied with going to the local church school. It was easier to spend money on the boys, who needed a good education to be successful in work, than the girls, who were expected to become wives.

Some opponents of formal education meant that girls should get an education that they could have some use for later in life. This kind of education was to be taught by the mother at home. The reason was that it was easier for girls to learn things from people they felt associated with. Girls had no use of knowledge in Latin, geology or similar subjects. Nor should they be encouraged to be selfish and develop thinking of their own. Instead they should practise their social skills so they could get married. In their future they would need these skills, because as a mother and wife their duty was to think of their husband and children's happiness in the first place. 

In herself woman was nothing, she was completely subordinated to men. She was considered vain and unstable and therefore in need of protection by a husband. Consequently, higher education would be wasted on women. The opinion was that women should be at home and bring emotional and moral guidance to their men and children. On the other hand some people meant that it would be even better if the mother was an intelligent and well-educated woman. Then she could give her children the right environment in which they could develop mentally and morally. 
Some anatomists argued that intelligence could be measured by the size of the skull: the larger skull the higher intelligence. Accordingly women were not as intelligent as men were, because their skull were smaller. John Stuart Mill rejected that idea as too simple. He wrote: "A tall and large-boned man must be wonderfully superior in intelligence to a small man, and an elephant or whale must prodigiously excel mankind." (Burstyn 79). For this reason it was no idea for women to educate themselves; they could never learn as much as men. Nor should they expose themselves to the mental strain of studies because it was a large risk that it would effect their possibilities to become pregnant. A woman should also behave and act like she was supposed to. Intellectual attainment was not an attractive quality in women. They did not brag about their intellect since intellectual women were supposed to be abnormal. If a woman was abnormal she would not get married and had to live in poverty. 

In the middle of the century feminists began to fight for women's right to an education. One reason was that the feminists were of the opinion that women needed to be well educated to make a positive contribution to society. Another reason was that women should be able to earn a living of their own if they remained unmarried or wanted to divorce their husband. Feminists thought that female education was unsystematic and disorganised. Demands on better education also came from the employers of the governess'. As a result of this demand it was discovered that women teachers also had to improve their education. When it was accepted that some women needed to earn a living all schools stressed the importance of academic education in combination with physical exercise. Accordingly the schools wanted to erase the myth that education would harm women's biological balance and fitness to be a mother. 

To sum up, all these different changes during the nineteenth century resulted in more and larger schools, which were open to both sexes. However opponents were afraid of a revolution between the sexes and therefor they wanted men and women to be in separate places. This fear disappeared after a while. Fortunately some people had realised that a probable cause to why it was intellectual differences between the sexes was women's lack of education and owing to all the supporters of female education we have a equality in schooling today.
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