"English girls' schools today providing the higher education are, so far as my knowledge goes, worthily representative of that astonishing rise in the intellectual standards of women which has taken place in the last half-century"
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Ward’s sentence performs a careful balancing act: it hands women a major intellectual compliment while keeping the speaker safely positioned as a measured gatekeeper rather than a radical cheerleader. The key word is “worthily.” It doesn’t just praise girls’ schools; it certifies them as legitimate heirs to “higher education,” a phrase still freighted, in her era, with university prestige and masculine tradition. She’s not celebrating rebellion so much as arguing that the new institutions meet the old standards.
The subtext is Victorian and tactical. By anchoring her claim to “so far as my knowledge goes,” Ward builds a persona of sober observation, not ideological enthusiasm. That hedge is rhetorical armor: it anticipates backlash from readers who might bristle at women stepping into intellectual territory and reassures them that the case is being made by someone reasonable, even conservative in tone. The compliment becomes harder to dismiss because it arrives as testimony, not manifesto.
Context matters. “The last half-century” points to the late 19th century’s rapid expansion of girls’ schooling, women’s colleges, and examination systems that began to formalize women’s academic credentials. Ward frames this as an “astonishing rise” in “intellectual standards,” language that both applauds progress and quietly admits a prior baseline of low expectation. That’s the sentence’s sharpest cultural work: it records a shift in what society will publicly concede about women’s minds, while keeping the measurement tools firmly in establishment hands.
The subtext is Victorian and tactical. By anchoring her claim to “so far as my knowledge goes,” Ward builds a persona of sober observation, not ideological enthusiasm. That hedge is rhetorical armor: it anticipates backlash from readers who might bristle at women stepping into intellectual territory and reassures them that the case is being made by someone reasonable, even conservative in tone. The compliment becomes harder to dismiss because it arrives as testimony, not manifesto.
Context matters. “The last half-century” points to the late 19th century’s rapid expansion of girls’ schooling, women’s colleges, and examination systems that began to formalize women’s academic credentials. Ward frames this as an “astonishing rise” in “intellectual standards,” language that both applauds progress and quietly admits a prior baseline of low expectation. That’s the sentence’s sharpest cultural work: it records a shift in what society will publicly concede about women’s minds, while keeping the measurement tools firmly in establishment hands.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
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