Girls Schooling In The 20th Century

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During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the interactions between European and Middle Eastern cultures increased dramatically. European merchants, missionaries, and diplomats along with touring students from Istanbul and Cairo to places such as Paris and London had a significant part in this cultural encounter. Two main countries, Britain and France, demonstrated superior power in military, political, and economic stability over Middle Eastern culture. As the Ottoman and Egyptian empires deteriorate, serious questions about their societies and reasons for their inferiority to European technologies. There was a wide range of opinion to this cultural awakening. One extreme argued that only the complete adoption of European concepts…show more content…
Much like the first article its goal was to stir ideas into the minds of its readers in hopes to push away from their old social and cultural practices and develop into higher civilized nation by providing education to girls. This second article builds off the first by stressing schooling for boys is essential but is less important than schooling for girls. It backs up its claim by explaining that boys are raised and learn their behaviors and virtues from their mothers before going to school at the age of eight. If the mother is educated through schools, it is likely that her children will learn from her good behaviors and virtues. Whereas, if the mother lacks an education, her children could be compelled to immoral…show more content…
One can propose a counter argument by saying if behaviors and virtues can be passed on to a child through observation, can we not say that we only need to educate a single generation of girls? If we say that one generation of girls is provided education and they shall grow up to become mothers, it is not irrational to argue that their daughters would not need schooling because they would learn their good behaviors and virtues from their educated mother. When the second generation of girls then become mothers to a third generation, should it not be true that the good behaviors and virtues of the second generation then too be passed on to the third generation and continue infinitely passing on the good virtues of the educated first generation of girls? The second article continues by then stating, "In the past, any woman who had a good education left a good name in history." This statement, in my opinion, is distorted. Just because a person gets a good education does not mean they will receive a good name in history, "any woman who has left a good name in history has had a good education" would portray a more realistic

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