A General View of Positivism by Auguste Comte (learn to read books TXT) 📕

more recognized, and as choice in marriage becomes less restricted, this relic of barbarism, with all its debasing results, will rapidly die out. With this view the application of our theory should be carried one step further. Women should not be allowed to inherit. If inheritance be allowed, the prohibition of dowries would be evaded in a very obvious manner by discounting the reversionary interest. Since women are to be exempt from the labour of production, capital, that is to say, the instruments of labour produced by each generation for the benefit of the next, should revert to men. This view of inheritance, so far from making men a privileged class, places them under heavy responsibilities. It is not from women that any serious opposition to it will proceed. Wise education will show them its value to themselves personally, as a safeguard against unworthy suitors. But, important as the rule is, it should not be legally enforced until it has become established on its own merits as a general custom, which everyone has felt to conduce to the healthy organization of the Family as here described.

Coming now to the subject of female education, we have only to make a further application of the theory which has guided us hitherto.

Since the vocation assigned by our theory to women is that of educating others, it is clear that the educational system which we have proposed in the last chapter for the working classes, applies to them as well as to the other sex with very slight alterations. Unencumbered as it is with specialities, it will be found, even in its more scientific parts, as suitable to the sympathetic element of the moderating power, as to the synergic element. We have spoken of the necessity of diffusing sound historical views among the working classes; and the same necessity applies to women; for social sympathy can never be perfectly developed, without a sense of the continuity of the Past, as well as of the solidarity of the Present. Since, then, both sexes alike need historical instruction as a basis for the systematization of moral truth, both should alike pass through the scientific training which prepares the way for social studies, and which moreover has as intrinsic a value for women as for men. Again, since the first or spontaneous stage of education is entirely to be left to women, it is most desirable that they should themselves have passed through the second or systematic stage. The only department with which they need not concern themselves, is what is called professional education. But this, as I have before observed, is not susceptible of regular organization. Professional skill can only be acquired by careful practice and experience, resting upon a sound basis of theory. In all other respects women, philosophers, and working men will receive the same education.

But while I would place the sexes on a level in this respect, I do not take the view of my eminent predecessor Condorcet, that they should be taught together. On moral grounds, which of course are the most important consideration, it is obvious that such a plan would be equally prejudicial to both. In the church, in the club, in the salon, they may associate freely at every period of life. But at school such intercourse would be premature; it would check the natural development of character, not to say that it would obviously have an unsettling influence upon study. Until the feelings on both sides are sufficiently matured, it is of the greatest importance that the relations of the two sexes should not be too intimate, and that they should be superintended by the watchful eye of their mothers.

As, however, the subjects of study are to be the same for both, the necessity of separating the sexes does not imply that there should be special teachers for women. Not to speak of the increased expenditure that would thus be incurred, it would inevitably lower the standard of female education. It would always be presumed that their teachers were men of inferior attainments. To ensure that the instruction given is the same for both sexes, the instructors must be the same, and must give their lectures alternately to each sex. These conditions are perfectly compatible with the scheme described in the last chapter. It was there mentioned that each philosopher would be expected to give one, or, in some cases, two lectures every week. Now supposing this were doubled, it would still come far short of the intolerable burdens which are imposed upon teachers in the present day. Moreover, as the Positivist educator will pass successively through the seven stages of scientific instruction, he will be able so to regulate his work as to avoid wearisome repetition of the same lectures in each year. Besides, the distinguished men to whom our educational system will be entrusted will soon discover that their two audiences require some difference in the manner of teaching, and that this may be done without in any way lowering the uniform standard which their method and their doctrines require.

But independently of the importance to female education of this identity of teachers, it will react beneficially on the intellectual and moral character of the philosopher who teaches. It will preclude him from entering into useless details, and will keep him involuntarily to the broad principles of his subject. By coming into contact simultaneously with two natures, in one of which thought, and in the other emotion, is predominant, he will gain clearer insight into the great principle of subordinating the intellect to the heart. The obligation of teaching both sexes will complete that universality of mind which is to be required of the new school of philosophers. To treat with equal ability of all the various orders of scientific conceptions, and to interest two audiences of so different a character, is a task which will demand the highest personal qualifications. However, as the number required by the conditions is not excessive, it will not be impossible