Chapter II: Part 2

1. Females, by having their understandings cultivated, their reasoning powers developed and strengthened, may be expected to act more from the dictates of reason and less from those of fashion and caprice.

2. With minds thus strengthened, they would be taught systems of morality, enforced by the sanctions of religion; and they might be expected to acquire juster and more enlarged views of their duty, and stronger and higher motives to its performance.

3. This plan of education offers all that can be done to preserve female youth from a contempt of useful labor. The pupils would become accustomed to it, in conjunction with the high objects of literature and the elegant pursuits of the fine arts; and it is to be hoped that both from habit and association they might in future life regard it as respectable.

To this it may be added that if housewifery could be raised to a regular art, and taught upon philosophical principles, it would become a higher and more interesting occupation; and ladies of fortune, like wealthy agriculturists, might find that to regulate their business was an agreeable employment.

4. The pupils might be expected to acquire a taste for moral and intellectual pleasures which would buoy them above a passion for show and parade, and which would make them seek to gratify the natural love of superiority by endeavoring to excel others in intrinsic merit rather than in the extrinsic frivolities of dress, furniture, and equipage.

5. By being enlightened in moral philosophy, and in that which teaches the operations of the mind, females would be enabled to perceive the nature and extent of that influence which they possess over their children, and the obligation which this lays them under to watch the formation of their characters with unceasing vigilance, to become their instructors, to devise plans for their improvement, to weed out the vices of their minds, and to implant and foster the virtues. And surely there is that in the maternal bosom which, when its pleadings shall be aided by education, will overcome the seductions of wealth and fashion, and will lead the mother to seek her happiness in communing with her children, and promoting their welfare, rather than in a heartless intercourse with the votaries of pleasure, especially when with an expanded mind she extends her views to futurity, and sees her care to her offspring rewarded by peace of conscience, the blessings of her family, the prosperity of her country, and, finally, with everlasting pleasure to herself and them.

Thus laudable objects and employments would be furnished for the great body of females who are not kept by poverty from excesses. But among these, as among the other sex, will be found master-spirits, who must have pre-eminence, at whatever price they acquire it. Domestic life cannot hold these, because they prefer to be infamous rather than obscure. To leave such without any virtuous road to eminence is unsafe to the community; for not unfrequently are the secret springs of revolution set in motion by their intrigues. Such aspiring minds we will regulate by education; we will remove obstructions to the course of literature, which has heretofore been their only honorable way to distinction; and we will offer them a new object, worthy of their ambition: to govern and improve the seminaries for their sex.

In calling on my patriotic countrymen to effect so noble an object, the consideration of national glory should not be overlooked. Ages have rolled away; barbarians have trodden the weaker sex beneath their feet; tyrants have robbed us of the present light of heaven, and fain would take its future. Nations calling themselves polite have made us the fancied idols of a ridiculous worship, and we have repaid them with ruin for their folly. But where is that wise and heroic country which has considered that our rights are sacred, though we cannot defend them? that, though a weaker, we are an essential part of the body politic, whose corruption or improvement must affect the whole? and which, having thus considered, has sought to give us by education that rank in the scale of being to which our importance entitles us? History shows not that country. It shows many whose legislatures have sought to improve their various vegetable productions and their breeds of useful brutes, but none whose public councils have made it an object of their deliberations to improve the character of their women. Yet, though history lifts not her finger to such a one, anticipation does. She points to a nation which, having thrown off the shackles of authority and precedent, shrinks not from schemes of improvement because other nations have never attempted them; but which, in its pride of independence, would rather lead than follow in the march of human improvement—a nation wise and magnanimous to plan, enterprising to undertake, and rich in resources to execute. Does not every American exult that this country is his own? And who knows how great and good a race of men may yet arise from the forming hand of mothers, enlightened by the bounty of that beloved country, to defend her liberties, to plan her future improvement, and to raise her to unparalleled glory?

MIDDLEBURY, 1819.

FEMALE EDUCATION.

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

An address delivered at the Brooklyn Collegiate Institute for
Young Ladies.

At the present period of society, when the light of knowledge, no longer the feeble glimmering of an uncertain dawn, is rapidly becoming “brighter and brighter unto perfect day,” it may seem idle and superfluous to call your attention to so hackneyed a subject as that of education. But permit me to observe that a subject of such vital importance to us, both as individuals and citizens, can scarcely be too often presented to our view. There is perhaps no country in the world where the benefits of education are so fully appreciated and so widely diffused as in our own. Schools, both public and private, have multiplied in every part of the Union; and even our common seminaries are now conducted upon such enlarged and liberal principles, as were formerly unknown beyond the walls of a university. But even in this enlightened age there is one point which yet remains somewhat in dispute—I mean the education of _females_. It is not long since the belief in woman’s inferior capacity was at least tacitly admitted, and there are many even now who adhere to that belief; but let us inquire what domain of human knowledge man can claim as his exclusive right. Is it the boundless field of classic lore? Where can be found a more indefatigable laborer in that fruitful soil than was Madame Dacier, the elegant translator of Plutarch? Is it the rugged steep of science? How few of all those who have toiled up that ascent ever attained such an elevated station as Maria Agnesi, the young and beautiful professor of mathematics at Bologna? Is it the thorny road of political economy, or the flowery paths of general literature? Who has ever traversed the former with such masculine vigor, or threaded the pleasant mazes of the latter with such feminine tact, as Madame de Staël, the wonder of her own sex, the envy of ours? Is it the fairy-land of poesy? Who, since the days of Shakespeare, could lay claim to the title of the “Poet of the Passions,” until it was proudly won by Miss Baillie? Where, since the early days of Campbell, have been found more sweetness and polish than in the productions of our universal favorite, Mrs. Hemans?

From the almost numberless examples of female intellect a few only have been adduced, with which we are all familiar, and surely they are enough to convince any unprejudiced mind that Heaven has conferred upon woman no less than upon man the gifts of talent and genius. By the proper restraints of her sex, woman is prevented from buffeting the waves of popular prejudice and diving into the depths of science after the yet undiscovered gems of truth; but who will dare assert that she is therefore insensible to their value or incapable of grasping them?

It has been asserted by some, whose minds were capable of a much wider range of observation than the remark would seem to indicate, that education, though it always renders _man_ an ornament to his station in society, invariably unfits a _woman_ for the duties which seem to have been allotted her by nature. This cannot possibly be true. Our ordinary experience certainly affords no proof that an enlightened mind is the most prone to error; it rather teaches us that they whose eyes have been opened to “see the right” seldom will voluntarily “the wrong pursue.” I speak not now of what is usually termed the eccentricity of genius, though that might be referred to as another evidence of the necessity of a proper education; for were talents always subjected to the discipline of the schools, we should not find a Mary Wollstonecroft pleading the cause of immorality and atheism under pretence of advocating the rights of women; nor would our country have been so recently insulted by the presence of a woman who still more boldly tramples upon the restraints of modesty and decorum, and publicly proclaims herself the “apostle of infidelity.” These are things which, if they were the result of mental cultivation, would induce a parent to suppress every glimmering of intellect in his darling and innocent child; but we need no argument to convince us that only those who have been “nursed in darkness” are prone to evil rather than to good.

Another objection which has been urged, with some apparent truth, against the present enlarged system of female education is that it is calculated to render women pedants and bookworms rather than useful members of the domestic circle; but to confute this we need only recur to our own personal experience, since doubtless there are few among us who cannot number among their friends women as much distinguished for domestic virtues as for superior and extensive acquirements. Indeed, is it not absurd to suppose that our daily repast will be less grateful because intellect and elegance preside at the social board? or that household fires will burn less brightly because kindled by a torch from the shrine of Minerva?

The true cause of all these various objections appears to be a misconception of the term education. A good education includes the culture of the heart as well as of the mind. It implies not merely the improvement of the mental faculties, but also the government of the passions and the proper direction of the affections. We should not think a garden beautiful where the weeds have been allowed to grow up among the flowers, however green and flourishing it might appear; neither should we deem a woman well educated whose heart was the abode of folly and vanity, however her mind might be stored with knowledge. One of our best writers on education (herself a striking proof of its benefits) has compared a well-regulated mind to a watch, where every part is so nicely balanced that no one can preponderate. This is a very apt illustration. Of the various faculties with which Heaven has endowed us, each may be perfect in itself; but from some error in our adjustment of them (if I may use the term), all may become useless. It is only by the most unwearied self-discipline that this correct balance of mental powers can be effected; and the ability to discipline one’s self can only be derived from education.

To employ the rapidly-developing faculties of early childhood merely as sources of amusement to ourselves is certainly not the proper method of bestowing upon our children the treasures of wisdom; yet this is the course usually pursued. If we would reap the rich harvest of a truly good education, the work of cultivation must commence at a much earlier period than even our most zealous laborers in the field of knowledge would deem necessary. As soon as a child is capable of receiving different degrees of pleasure from different objects, the task of instruction should commence; not, however, by means of dry precept and tedious disquisition, for these would be incomprehensible, but by resorting to all those thousand devices which a judicious instructor is so ingenious in contriving, in order to inform as well as amuse. Every opportunity of imparting knowledge should be eagerly seized, for knowledge acquired at such an age becomes a part of our very nature; and, whatever may be the course of our after-life, the impressions received in early childhood are never totally effaced.

But to whom is the sacred and laborious duty of early instruction delegated? Is it to the father, who, returning from his daily toil, seeks in the bosom of his family that peace which never abides in the turmoil of the world? Surely not. The conflict with a hard and selfish world is enough for _him_; the duty of combating with rebellious human nature is reserved for the mother’s portion. No father can, no father ought to know how much heaviness of heart, how much weariness of spirit, the mother has endured in order to render his children the objects of his pride as well as of his affection. To foster the germ of mental energy, to train up the early shoots of intellect, and, more than all, to watch over the pure fresh feelings of the youthful heart, and direct its innocent affections to “things above,” so that it may never be induced to “place its happiness lower than itself,” these are the ennobling duties of a mother.

But can these duties be performed by the woman whose mental energies were in early youth wasted upon the fascinating pages of romance, and, in later life, frittered away amid the frivolities of fashion? “Never,” observed a man of acknowledged sense and penetration, “never have I known a man distinguished for wisdom and virtue who was the son of a foolish mother.” This is emphatically true; and when we consider how often the temper and dispositions which we falsely ascribe to nature may be traced to impressions received in infancy, our own experience will bear testimony to its truth. The husbandman who should scatter his seed among the dry clods of an untilled field, and then go his way rejoicing in the anticipation of a rich harvest, would be far more likely to reap tares than wheat; yet there would not be more folly in _his_ expectations than in those of the well-meaning but injudicious mother who, after having allowed the precious years of infancy to slip by, fondly hopes to gather from the youthful mind the rare fruits of virtue and religion, the principles of which no previous culture had fitted it to receive. Education _must_ begin in infancy. Even in the nurse’s arms a child learns to distinguish between pleasurable and disagreeable objects; and in the same manner—that is to say, by making appeals to the senses—may it be taught the difference between right and wrong. If it be true, as some wise men have asserted, that the first ten years give a coloring to man’s whole life, then let women look well to their maternal duties, for awful is their responsibility.

Could the secret biography of heroes and sages throughout the earth be correctly ascertained, so as to trace the progress of early education, what a brilliant lustre would be shed on the maternal character! Even in the pages of general history, notwithstanding its vague and unsatisfactory sketches of the detail of life, how universally do we find the influence of women made manifest. It is recorded of the greatest orator of antiquity that the wise and politic plans which it had cost him years to frame could be overturned in a single day by a woman; and Tacitus himself, the most impartial of historians, has not hesitated to trace the degeneracy of morals under the emperors to the period when the Roman matrons began to relinquish to slaves and hirelings the education of their children. If such are the desolating effects of woman’s ill-directed influence, let us reflect for a moment upon the incalculable benefits which might be derived from the same powerful force when exerted in its proper direction. Those only who have been long accustomed to look into the springs of human action can be aware how much the general state of civilized society depends upon the sentiments and habits of women; for while many are willing to admit the powerful effect of female elegance on the _manners_ of men, few will as readily acknowledge the influence of female principles upon their _character_. But to those who can only be taught by examples we can give one noble evidence of the advantages of woman’s influence. Let us recall to mind the history of the man who directed the destinies of our own proud and happy country—let us look at the moral grandeur of his character—let us behold him gifted with the heart to desire, the intellect to plan, and the hand to achieve the freedom of an infant nation—let us observe him placed at the head of that nation, idolized by its citizens, respected by its enemies, admired by the world; yet, uncontaminated by that ambition which is so generally the offspring of power, we see him quietly resigning that proudest of all titles, the ruler of a free people, and returning, with his early, simple habits, to the tillage of his humble farm. Yes; let us contemplate in every point of view the majesty of this character, which stands, like the pyramids of Egypt, the unrivalled object of a world’s admiration, and then let us recollect with noble pride that the character of our illustrious Washington was formed by his _mother_.

In a country like ours, where wealth is continually fluctuating, where the fortune which a father bequeaths to his son to-day may be totally consumed by some sudden revolution in commerce to-morrow, the only unalienable property which can be bestowed upon our children is an unblemished name and a good education. Under such a government as ours the latter is indispensable. Ours has been called a nation of kings; and when we reflect on the incalculable mischief which is daily effected in less happy countries by unenlightened rulers and an ignorant populace, we may form some idea of the evils which would result from an uninformed and uneducated _sovereign people_. The little boy who climbs his father’s knee and lisps his infantile prattle into his delighted ear may be called at some future period to direct the destinies of a large portion of our fellow-countrymen. The path to distinction is open to all, however lowly their station; for the aristocracy of talent is the only aristocracy which Americans acknowledge; and this we cannot reject, since it bears Heaven’s own signet on its patent of nobility. Is it not absolutely essential, then, that the heart and mind of every child in the community should be objects of earnest solicitude to every patriotic bosom? “The old systems of education are good for nothing,” said the First Consul of France to Madame Campan, when he visited the school under her direction. “What is yet requisite in order that young persons may be well educated in France?” continued he. “_Mothers_,” was the emphatic reply. “True, madame,” answered Napoleon; “let Frenchmen, therefore, acknowledge their obligation to you as having been the first to educate mothers for their children.” Napoleon well knew that the only materials out of which a mighty nation could be formed were rational, enlightened, educated men; and the importance of female influence in early life could not possibly escape the penetration of such an adept in human nature.

Let me not be misunderstood when I thus earnestly insist upon the necessity of female education. I do not mean that our daughters should be rendered capable of becoming teachers of classical literature or professors of the sciences; but I would have them intimately acquainted with all _useful_ branches of human knowledge. I would have them sufficiently versed in the learning of the ancients to be able to lay the foundation of a classical education in their sons; I would have them so skilled in those elegant arts which form the embellishment of life, that they may be able to improve to the utmost the developing tastes of their daughters; and, above all, I would have them deeply and thoroughly imbued with the knowledge of the Scriptures—the wisdom which cometh from above—the pure and holy and liberal principles of that religion whose founder was the Redeemer of a world.

The duty of a mother is indeed an arduous one; but its very difficulty renders it incapable of being transferred to other hands. To struggle with the untamed passions of human nature—those passions whose early development affords the most convincing proof that the heart of the natural man is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;” to arouse the spirit of useful inquiry in the infant mind; to direct that inquiry to subjects which may purify the heart and elevate the intellect; to impart the first notions of a Deity, and afterwards to improve those vague ideas into a love and reverence for the bountiful Creator and Ruler of the universe—these are tasks of which no father, however affectionate, is capable. They require woman’s opportunities, woman’s tact, woman’s delicacy; and, may I not add, the peculiar devotedness of woman’s affection?

“There is none,
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, like that within
A mother’s heart. There’s too much pride, wherewith
To his fair son the father’s eye doth turn,
Watching his growth. Aye, on the boy he looks,
The bright glad creature springing in his path,
But as the heir of his great name—the young
And stately tree; whose rising strength ere long
Shall bear his trophies well—and this is love!
This is _man’s_ love!—what marvel?—_you_ ne’er made
Your breast the pillow of his infancy,
While to the fulness of your heart’s glad heavings
His fair cheek rose and fell; and his bright hair
Waved softly to your breath!—_you_ ne’er kept watch
Beside him, till the last pale star had set,
And morn, all dazzling, as in triumph, broke
On your dim weary eyes;—not _yours_ the face
That, early faded through fond care of him,
Hung o’er his sleep, and, duly as Heaven’s light,
Was there to greet his wakening!—_you_ ne’er smoothed
His couch, ne’er sung him to his rosy rest,
Caught his least whisper, when his voice from yours
Had learned soft utterance; pressed your lips to his,
When fever parched it; hushed his wayward cries
With patient, vigilant, never wearied love!
No, these are woman’s tasks!”

Mrs. Hemans.

But these are not all. Were a mother’s cares confined to the mere _physical_ welfare of her sons, too often in later life, when she saw the objects of her solicitude swallowed up in the ever yawning vortex of vice, would she be compelled to exclaim, with all the bitterness of disappointment,

“My boys! my boys!
Hath vain affection borne with all for _this_?
Why were ye given me?...”

It is not so—her duties are of a higher order. Beautiful as is the picture of woman’s tenderness which I have just presented to you, it was far exceeded in moral beauty by the exquisite description of an enlightened and pious mother, which not long ago was uttered within these very walls,[1] by lips that seemed touched with “a live coal from the altar.” If it be true that the noblest being in the scale of creation is he who has the greatest number of duties to perform, then well may woman rejoice in the dignity of her station; but let her joy be mingled with “fear and trembling,” and let her so perform her allotted task that in the day when all must be summoned before the bar of God she may be able to say, in the emphatic words of Scripture, “Behold, here am I, Lord, with the children which thou hast given me.”

If such are the arduous duties of a mother, what should be the measure of gratitude which she has a right to claim from her children? It is a debt like that we owe to Heaven—the day of our death finds it yet uncancelled.

To you, my young friends, I would address myself in the language of deep and earnest interest. You are now at that delightful period of life which is like spring among the seasons, redolent of beauty and freshness, and giving fair promise of the rich fruits of maturer years. Take heed the young blossoms be not blighted. Call to mind the countless advantages which have been bestowed on you; reflect upon the anxious solicitude of the fathers who wait to see you the objects of their pride as well as the sources of their happiness; remember the cares, the exertions, the almost heart-breaking anxiety of the mothers who have guided your infant feet to the threshold of the temple of knowledge, and then press forward “in the race set before you.” You are entering upon a noble career. The pure and elevated and holy duties which are peculiarly a woman’s will soon claim your undivided attention. Let me pray you, therefore, so to discipline your hearts, so to cultivate your minds, so to purify your spirits now, during the unbroken leisure of youth, that the hour of trial may find you “with your lamps trimmed and burning.” You have begun well; go on, then, in the same course and remember that “of those to whom much is given, much will be required;” and that genius and knowledge, while they lay claim to the highest honors which man can bestow, also bear with them the highest responsibilities both to God and man. Science is now opening to you her richest store of honor and usefulness, and the prayers of parents and friends are following you when you are utterly unconscious of them. Pause, then—in the cool freshness of the morning of life, before you wax faint in the noonday heats—pause and form for yourselves the noble resolutions which should direct your future life. Look back through the shadowy vista of past years, and behold what are the foundations of the most lasting honors of men. Look forward with the eye of faith to the glories of the promised land; and while you weigh well the different results of moral conduct, take heed that ye “keep your hearts with all diligence, for out of them are the issues of life.” Form your taste on the classics, your judgment on the sciences, and your principles on the book of all truth. Let the dawn of your being be hallowed by that pure devotion which is ever an “offering of a sweet smelling savor” to the bounteous giver of all good. Let the first-fruits of your intellect be laid before the altar of _Him_ who breathed into your nostrils the breath of life, and with that breath a portion of His exalted spirit; and while your life furnishes the most striking illustration of the benefits of education, let it be your care so to persevere unto the end that it may be said of each in her own peculiar sphere, “Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.”

1831.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This address was read in St. Ann’s Church, Brooklyn.

THE COLLEGIATE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.

BY PROFESSOR MARIA MITCHELL, VASSAR COLLEGE.

This paper was read at the Congress of the Association for the
Advancement of Women, held in Boston, October, 1880.

Some years since I met, in travelling, an intelligent gentleman who was interested in the cause of education. It is good to get away from your native latitude, even if the polestar is lower. I listened with great interest to the expression of his views, which were based upon surroundings unlike my own. He enlarged upon the advantage to the country which would result from a great national university, and he described it in glowing colors. “I would have it cost,” he said, “not tens of millions, but hundreds of millions.” “For both boys and girls,” I said, quietly. He paused a minute, and then said, as if to himself, “Well—I had not thought of the girls.” And he had daughters only! Let us think of the girls.

WHOM SHALL WE HELP TO A COLLEGIATE EDUCATION?

Our colleges are at present adapted to what in England would be called the “upper middle class.” Can we extend their opportunities to a larger number? We cannot put _every_ girl through a college course. In the more enlightened States elementary education is compulsory, and (theoretically) every child is taught to read and to write. To watch the public schools; to foster interest in the subject of education; to vote for the best persons, men or women, as guardians of these schools—these are our duties to _all_ classes, but more especially to the _very_ poor, to whom no other schools can open. We cannot in this age make the public school a college, although it would be well if every State, like Massachusetts, gave to the few who intend to enter college the necessary instruction in preparatory studies. To my question, “_Whom shall we help to collegiate education?_” I should answer:

_First._ Do not attempt to put the daughters of the _very_ poor through a college course. It is barely possible that a rare genius may be found even among the unworthy poor, but the chance is so small that we shall waste time in looking for it. We cannot hurry the processes of nature. We may by rearrangements and modifications change the conditions into which we are born, but we cannot escape them. The tree of slowest growth is the _family_ tree; if you examine that on one of whose branches some great name hangs, you will find that it had no mushroom growth, that its rings can be counted by hundreds.

_Second._ I should say, also, Do not aid the sickly girl to enter college. Harm has already been done in this way. As in earlier days the feeble boy was trained for the pulpit, so there is to-day some tendency to send a sickly girl to college—partly because our girls’ colleges are governed by so good sanitary laws. I should dissuade the delicate girl from the attempt to take a regular college course. Let her study in the open air! Let her take a regular course of study in out-of-door practical sciences—botany, geology, mineralogy. Let her exchange the crochet-needle for the needle of the surveyor’s compass. The study of nature must be study with nature; if it requires one hour with books, this may be followed by two hours spent in hunting an insect in green fields, or in gathering shells from sea-washed rocks.

I should suppose that a summer science school for girls would be a good institution. Let a number of students club together, and establishing themselves in a healthy and unfashionable place, study its natural history. Such education would be fragmentary, but a little of science is as valuable for development as a little of the classics, or a little of mathematics; and the theory of to-day is, “Taste, even if you cannot drink deeply.”

Knowing well-born, well-bred, and healthy young girls who are prepared to enter college, and whose means are not quite adequate, let us help _them_. But the hand should not go to the pocket without some direction from the head. I say let us help _them_, for I deplore the rash impulse to take up one bright girl and carry her through a college course by other means than those of her parents or relatives. We take her from the very struggle which she needs for her growth. She learns to expect to be held up, and she ceases to stand upright. I believe a girl loses her nicety in morals who looks around to see who is coming to her rescue! She owes, without a thought of payment.

Do not aid by founding prizes. You then add an artificial struggle to that which is healthy and invigorating. If possible, aid by giving manual labor, but let it be such as shall be educating. When we talk of manual labor for girls, we seem always to mean household duties. A college student can often make herself useful by copying for professors, or by tutoring slow pupils, as well as by less pleasing domestic work. I think young girls at colleges where land is allotted to them for cultivation might raise and sell flowers and seeds. Form for any young girl a habit of earning money, and you give her a lifelong advantage. I consider it one of my duties to the young women who come into my department to encourage a respect for remunerative occupation. Why should girls be brought up with an idea that _paid_ labor is _ignoble_?

If you cannot give to a good girl a chance to work her way through college, give money into her hands. Do not help her by buying her books, by paying her bills, or by bestowing unsuitable costume. Let her learn the value of money. Most girls would prefer a loan, and the very carefulness to repay a loan would be a check to unnecessary expense. But as some very sensible girls are timid about a loan, I should say, “Give,” but give just the amount sufficient to bridge over the difficult place; do not make the journey ruinously easy. Our Vassar girls receive aid from a fund left by the founder of the college. Many of them return it as soon as they are able, for the use of the coming classes. It is small, and but few can receive it in one year. I would increase the number who can receive, rather than the amount to each student.

This direct aid given to certain students by individuals is good, but it is limited to exceptional cases. We reverse the order of nature. We are careful of the single life, we are careless of the type.

HOW SHALL WE MAKE THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN STILL HIGHER?

I never look at a group of teachers such as are employed in the colleges for girls but I am reminded of the expression of St. Ambrose: “The noble army of martyrs.” The work of a teacher should be such as does not kill, for the value of human life is quite as great in the case of the teacher as in that of the student.

The pleasant smile with which a young teacher greets her class as she enters upon her duties should become more serene, more inspiring at middle life. But how can it be? I find that the number of students to one teacher is usually fifty! The amount of work that teachers do is enormous. There seems to be no “getting through.” They work five or six hours a day, and then take to their rooms the written examinations and problems for their evening recreation. Besides, a good teacher does infinitely higher work outside of tutorial hours. I have sometimes looked at the variety of work done for some young girl—the careful watching over her health, the good counsel given in morals, the patient endurance with loose mental habits—and I have said to myself, “How little that parent knows the enormous return which he gets for his moneyed investment!”

We are constantly told that too many women become teachers. Yes; but the number would not be too great if fewer students were put into the hands of one teacher. A teacher should not cease to be a student; she cannot, with safety; she should have time for new acquisitions. I would not say, give time by lengthening vacations; but I would say, give time by lessening the number of students. A young girl needs the companionship in her classes of a few, but the teacher should know each pupil individually. According to my own idea, the proper number for good class work is ten; but when I asked a professor of Cornell how many he thought best for class and professor, he said, “Four.” Given a small class and a teacher of any magnetism, and there need be no required attendance.

A large class requires much routine work to enable it to move without friction, and to some persons the precision of military drill is the poetry of motion. I mourn over any loss of individuality.

We should increase the number of teachers by lessening the number of students to each, and diminish the number by retiring the old and worn-out. In New York State a judge is retired at seventy, but a professor in a college may have a life tenure. The retired teacher should be pensioned. It is a great wrong to students to retain the incompetent teacher who would gladly rest; it is base and cruel to turn off the old teacher penniless. I have known a woman whom every one respected and whose pupils loved her, to retire, after forty years of labor in one school, without even the small purse and small speech usually proffered to the cast-off clergyman. And this in Massachusetts.

Our colleges are too expensive for the class which most needs them. We ought to reach the large middle class. We do not. From the great City of New York there are usually ten students in Vassar College; and as many from New York are at Vassar as at any other college. If we take out of New York life those for whom Europe is the college, those for whom the workshop is the university, those for whom society is the universe, we still have an enormous residuum of young women who should be studying. For these our colleges are too expensive. The cost of a girl’s education is much greater than that of a boy. Why should it be so? Why should not girls club together, board themselves in a wholesome and inexpensive way, obtain some light employment which will add to their means, and dress for almost nothing? I touch the subject of expense in dress with a sinking heart, for I know that no party is with me; I stand almost alone. We need organized missionary work on the subject. Young women say, “It is our duty to look pretty;” and one would suppose, from the attention paid to it, that it was the _highest_ duty. In the very homes whose walls are unadorned with pictures and whose book-shelves contain no standard works, the wardrobe is defended on æsthetic grounds. I have visited in the houses of English noblemen whose daughters would be shocked at the expensiveness of the college and school costumes of the daughters of our ordinary mechanics. This is a question of _taste_ only. But what shall we say of that family in which the personal decoration continues to be costly after financial reverse has come to its head?

I hope the time will come when colleges will be able to give up the pomps and parades of public days. Why should the conferring of degrees at commencement be heralded by noisy music? Is the college commencement a _necessary_ evil? Girls need no stimulus to work. The commencement ceremonies are in the thoughts of an ambitious girl from the time she enters college until she graduates. The “part” at commencement haunts her; the college degree, she feels, is sure; but for the sake of the loved ones at home she hopes and works and prays for what she considers the “honor.” Is it a healthy influence?

There can be no other motive for great gatherings at colleges than that of indirect advertising. The guests who come to the college see nothing of its methods of working; they see the college building and its inmates in full dress; they know nothing of the unremitting, hard, conscientious study which is done behind the scenes.

When we have done all that we can to lessen the expense inside the walls of the college—when those of us who have longed for college education, and to whom it has been denied for want of means, contribute our small aids—but little has been done towards bringing the colleges within the reach of the large middle class which needs them.

What our colleges need is _endowment_. But I would not have it take the shape of buildings. Buildings should come as they are called for, and be adapted to the call. Our colleges should not be monuments to the dead, but workshops for the living. There is no beauty in unfitness. There stands on Calton Hill, in Edinburgh, a temple which would delight the heart of an old Greek by its architectural beauty. It is the astronomical observatory, and every classic ornament hides the height of the stars from the observer.

Thirty years ago I heard Professor Henry say that what he had needed was a simple office, and the Government had put him into the Smithsonian Institute. There is a story of a distinguished chemist, who, when a visitor asked to be shown his laboratory, turned to the servant and said, “John, bring in the laboratory,” and it was brought in on a waiter. I know two buildings for educational purposes which are exactly adapted to the demand of the hour. Both were built by women. The first is the Woman’s Laboratory in Boston, where every cent has been spent for science and the investigations of science. The second is the building of the School of Philosophy at Concord. It is a plain one-story building; its outward decoration the vine which creeps up its unpainted sides; its only music the song of birds. It shelters the summer philosophers; its lookout from the numerous windows is inspiring, its ventilation is excellent.

What our colleges need is such endowment as shall bring them within the reach of the large middle class. The amount of money given to girls’ colleges is pitiably small. The endowment of all the girls’ colleges put together does not come up to that of Harvard alone. Why are _not_ our colleges endowed? Because our people do not quite believe in that kind of education for boys; in the case of girls there is positive disbelief; the tone of the Press is against it.

A New York editor once said to me, “The highest duty of a woman is to be ornamental in the parlor.” He forgot that the majority of women have no parlors. I take up at random newspaper scraps, and I read:

“Last year twelve persons in the United States gave an aggregate of $3,000,000 to foreign missions.”

“Mr. S—— gives $25,000 for charitable, benevolent, and educational purposes in this country.”

These scraps do not unfairly represent the ratio of interest felt for foreign missions and home schools; very rarely is anything given directly for the education of girls. It would be well if something of the missionary’s spirit and the revivalist’s zeal came into our staid and decorous methods of dealing with educational subjects. To my view, the admission of women to school suffrage in Massachusetts is a very great gain to the cause of education. Perhaps it is larger to me because I am far off, thus inverting the law of optics; for I hear it spoken of as _small gain_ in Massachusetts. But it is eventually the gain of all that we ask for women; it is the beginning, and the best beginning. All that women ask for is the enlightenment of our present rulers; the foreign-born boy takes a lesson indirectly from the women who as school committee visit the school. Massachusetts was better prepared for school suffrage than New York can be for a long time. The women’s clubs had led the way. The community had become accustomed to hearing from women, had learned to value the opinions of women; the suffrage movement had reached the ears of women; the temperance movement had gone to their hearts; women had already become the leading orators; it was comparatively a little thing to drop a ballot into a box. When all the women of the land are roused to an interest in the public schools, the “hundreds of millions” for women’s colleges, or for men’s colleges, or for both together, will not be wanting.

A NEW KNOCK AT AN OLD DOOR.

BY LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE.

In my morning journal stand five solid columns of advertisements of girls’ schools. “It is fit,” says Mr. Samuel Pepys, speaking of some new gown bought for his wife, “that the poor wretch should have something wherewith to content her.” But it would seem that some hundreds of New York wives refuse to content themselves with these manifold educational concessions of the Pepysian spirit. For beside the journal lies a petition, very fully signed, a large proportion of names being those of women, which reads:

“We, the undersigned, residents of New York City and
neighborhood, beg leave to present our respectful petition:
That in view of the present state of public opinion, both here
and in other countries, touching the justice and expediency of
admitting women to the same educational advantages as men, a
state of opinion especially evidenced by the recent action of
the English universities of Cambridge and London, and in view
of the influential position of Columbia College as among the
oldest and most richly endowed educational institutions in the
United States, and pre-eminently representing the intellectual
interests of the city of New York, you will be pleased to
consider how best to extend, with as little delay as possible,
to such properly qualified women as may desire it, the many and
great benefits of education in Columbia College, by admitting
them to lectures and examinations.”

To many sober and conscientious persons, both men and women, this demand sounds absurd, needless, improper, and dangerous. But do these objectors remember that every appeal for a better female education seemed, in its day, equally preposterous? It is hardly three centuries since Mademoiselle Françoise de Saintonge was hooted through the streets of her native village for proposing so disreputable a plan as the establishment of schools for girls in France, and her anxious father called in four learned doctors to determine whether this mad idea was not due to her possession by devils. The doctors pronounced her in her right mind, but her pious fellow-citizens stopped the spread of immoral ideas by the conclusive argument of insults levelled at the teacher and stones addressed to the pupils. The progress of the next century and a half is recorded in Dean Swift’s observation that men constantly asked each other whether it was prudent to choose a wife who had good natural parts, some sense of wit and humor, a little knowledge of history, the capacity to relish travels or moral and entertaining discourse, and to discern the more obvious beauties of poetry. The general verdict, he says, was against such attainments in women, because their tendency was to make wives pretentious and conceited, and not duly subject to their husbands.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, translating Epictetus at nineteen, and sending her work to her kind friend, the Lord Bishop of Salisbury, apologizes at length for attempting a task universally pronounced unfit for a woman, and certain to draw down censure upon her (excusing herself, however, by citing the opinions of Erasmus, in the Latin!). Nearly fifty years afterwards, in advising her daughter concerning the education of a bright little namesake, she entreats that free scope may be accorded the child’s capacity, for the sake of the pure delight of learning and of her future happiness. But she adds the warning that, to insure a satisfactory marriage, the young girl’s wit and acquirements must be as carefully concealed as a deformity from a world which suspected or despised a learned woman. So strong, almost to our day, has been this half-conscious contempt of the feminine mentality, that even Charles Lamb, that gentle and charitable soul, could speak of “L.E.L.” with an unmanly sneer, and declare that a female poet, or female author of any kind, invited disrespect.

It is but ninety years since an Englishwoman, the famous Mary Wollstonecroft, published the first serious demand for the higher education of Englishwomen. Her public found the book immodest, irreligious, anarchic. Issued to-day, it would appear a harmless plea, a trifle heavy and conservative, perhaps, for the thorough cultivation of the female mind, urged on social, moral, and religious grounds, and protesting against the sentimentalism of Rousseau and the now forgotten Dr. Gregory. Mrs. Hannah More’s dull novel of “Cœlebs in Search of a Wife,” issued in 1808, contained, perhaps, the first argument in fiction that a ninny is not necessarily the ideal wife, or a knowledge of the Latin grammar incompatible with a turn for house-keeping.

It was no scoffer, but the sweet-spirited Fénelon, who taught that contact with learning would be almost as fatal to womanly delicacy as contact with vice. To Voltaire’s love of epigram might be pardoned his saying that “Ideas are like beards; women and young men have none.” But Lessing was serious when he declared that “The woman who thinks is like the man who puts on rouge, ridiculous.” And even Niebuhr, the large-minded, believed that he should not have educated a girl well, for he should have made her know too much.

It was the first care of the Pilgrim Fathers to establish schools. Girls were allowed to attend these, two hours a day. But afterwards the system was remodelled in a spirit of wide liberality, and girls were suffered all day—in the summer. When women teachers came to be employed, they were required to “teach the English language correctly and the rudiments of arithmetic.” In 1826, after a discussion of three years, the city fathers of Boston resolved to establish a high-school for girls on the model of its admirable high-school for boys. But such an army of young women battered the gates of that educational heaven with storms of prayers that, after a trial of eighteen mouths, the dismayed corporation decided—to enlarge the building and multiply teachers? No, but to close the school altogether.

We smile at Monsieur de Saintonge and the sages of Boston. The two hundred and fifty advertisements refute the ancient prejudices. The innumerable names of women who have conquered success in literature, science, art; as great organizers, administrators, educators, refute them. The very discussion of the hour puts them to silence, for it declares that the question is no longer whether women are worth educating, but what education is worth most to them. The point of view is changed because the social conditions are changed.

If the cultivated judgment of ages held the female understanding to be inferior, doubtless it was inferior. Without incentives, means, or opportunities for growth, the mind of woman did not grow. And these helps were denied her, not by any mean desire of man to defraud her, not by any divine limitation of her needs, but because her time had not come. Just as war and slavery have been inevitable conditions and natural agents of human progress, so has the subjection of woman. In a rude society man was her necessary protector, she his helpless dependent. Some sort of marriage utilized the capacity, such as it was, of every woman, because every man needed a household of cheap servitors. If he fought to protect his property in wives and concubines, they cancelled the debt by labor. Ignorance was their normal and necessary estate. So long as the exercise of brute force remained the chief satisfaction of man, so long was woman insignificant. As advancing civilization has required them, the feminine qualities have answered, with growing adequacy, to the requirement. But of necessity the traditions of the time of man’s legitimate supremacy lived on, and still survive in the general if vague notion that something external, mechanical, eleemosynary, must be done continually _for_ woman; whereas the modern spirit, which has been so long struggling into recognition, maintains that little of permanent value can be done for woman which is not done _by_ woman. Growth is from within.

In his attitude of guardian, man—as, in the progress of time, he has felt the need of a companion and ally rather than of a servant and toy—has gradually released to woman the freedom of certain tracts of knowledge, finding his own account in this concession. And if he has not hitherto been ready to endow her with the whole fair domain, neither has she been free to occupy it. Ever since the Old Testament matrons ground the corn between stones, and sewed the skins their husbands brought home, and baked, and brewed, and made wine, and taught their slaves, and tended their sick, and reared their children, and adorned themselves to find favor in the sight of their lords, have generations of women found their first untroubled rest in the grave. But now machinery does half their work at half the cost, while organization still further relieves them from drudgery. Moreover, the great increase of wealth following on the arts of peace, fosters a growing class of unemployed and luxurious women, free to use the means of the higher education which their higher needs demand.