“Again, women need solid mental training, not only to amend their reasoning and open their minds to argument, but also to correct the terribly inaccurate and superficial knowledge they now usually think sufficient.” (Cobbe, p 86)
Cobbe highlights the importance that women not only deserve but need education, which I believe is indisputable. She points out that for so long they have been fed only knowledge that men wanted them to know and learn. How is someone supposed to defend their humanity if they were never taught it? Not only do women deserve the right to their own morals and beliefs, but they also deserve to be able to pursue general knowledge and it should not be discredited. Cobbe brings up an example of geometry with “female instruction” (p 87) is disregarded, and very likely it is because it would now be associated with females.
Cobbe wrote this piece in 1862, and the education act of 1870. Did Cobbe have a lasting impact on the advocacy for a woman’s right to education, despite it being 8 years apart? Or did this work of Cobbe’s only resurface around the passing of the act?
