on of the "higher education"
of women and the present discussion, which is concerned with the
_highest education_ of women.

Words are only symbols, but, like other symbols, they are capable of
assuming much empire over the mind. Man, indeed, as Stevenson said,
lives principally by catchwords, and though woman, beside a cot, is less
likely to be caught blowing bubbles and clutching at them, she also is
in some degree at the mercy of words. The higher education of women is
a good phrase. It appeals, just because of the fine word higher, to
those who wish women well, and to those who are not satisfied that woman
should remain for ever a domestic drudge. The phrase has had a long run,
so to say, but I propose that henceforth we should set it to compete
with another--the highest education of women. Whether this phrase will
ever gain the vogue of the other even a biased and admiring father may
well question. But if there is anything certain, having the whole weight
of Nature behind it, and only the transient aberrations of men opposed
thereto, it is that what I call the highest education of women will be
and will remain the most central and capital of society's functions,
when what is now called the higher education of women has gone its
appointed way with nine-tenths of all present-day education, and exists
only in the memory of historians who seek to interpret the fantastic
vagaries of the bad old days.

Perhaps it is well that we should begin by freeing the word education
from the incrustations of mortal nonsense that have very nearly obscured
its vitality altogether. Before we can educate for motherhood, we must
know what education is, and what it is not. We must have a definition of
it and its object; in general as well as in this particular case,
otherwise we shall certainly go wrong. Perhaps it may here be permitted
to quote a paragraph from a lecture on "The Child and the State," in
which some few years ago I attempted to express the first principles of
this matter:--

"Now, as a student of biology, I will venture to propose a definition
of education which is new, so far as I know, and which I hope and
believe to be true and important. Comprehensively, so as to include
everything that must be included, and yet without undue vagueness, I
would define education as _the provision of an environment_. We may
amplify this proposition, and say that it is the provision of a fit
environment for the young and foolish by the