By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The feminine soul is a source of grace, delicacy and sensitivity. It enriches the moral and social life of mankind with spiritual values that a man is far from capable of giving it. The equilibrium of the human race requires women with a rich mental make-up in the gifts inherent to their sex, just as it requires of men a profoundly masculine soul. It would be absurd to educate a generation of boys in the most feminine way possible. No less absurd would it be to educate a generation of girls with the intention of making them as masculine as possible.
Nowadays a certain pedagogy seems to have entirely forgotten this trivial truth. Instead of forming girls for the role they will naturally have in social life, it forms them exactly like boys who are destined to shape the future with the burden and responsibilities proper to men.
This picture gives an example of this. It is a girl’s playroom. Embedded in the wall is something resembling a rock of rude and irregular contour. On it are some pseudo-infantile figures that, in fact, resemble art figures of primitive man. It seems to be a part of a prehistoric cave and is used to create an environment which is inherent to it. And this environment can already be seen in this little world where this girl’s soul is to be formed. To the side is a picture of an amusement that cave children must have had when they were able to leave their cave to play a bit—a tree to climb. There is a dried trunk, upon which the girl can climb up and down to her heart’s content. Next to the trunk is a board with large asymmetrical holes to give some diversity to the amusement. The girl can squirm through the holes if perchance she finds going up and down the trunk becomes monotonous. And there is a third amusement: the girl can fling herself on the ground, happily substituted, in this case, by a mattress. (Even modern pedagogy is still somewhat bourgeois.) Yet another pastime that a prehistoric child would have enjoyed!
This environment of a primitive jungle lacks only the open air, the sun and the stars—replaced by electric lights. An electric sky—to form the sensibilities of a child of the atomic age—is not more than one could expect. And of everything that should not be lacking in an atmosphere destined to form girls—harmony, flowers, birds—one only notes a dove sketched at the top of the wall—harsh, stiff and cold, as if it were made of wire.
For what kind of a world is such a teaching method preparing us?
Ambience Customs & Civilization, “Catolicismo” No. 27 – March 1953
