Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions by Catharine E. Beecher
Author: Unknown
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Making of America Books Basic | Boolean | Proximity |

Bibliographic | Search History

UMDL Texts home U of M login View bookbag your bookbag has 0 items

Home Search BrowseHelp

list of all pages | add to bookbag

Title:Educational reminiscences and suggestions. By Catherine [!] E.

Beecher.

Author:Beecher, Catharine E. (Catharine Esther), 1800-1878.

Availability:These pages may be freely searched and displayed.

Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Please contact umdl-info@umich.edu for more information.

Print Source:Educational reminiscences and suggestions. By Catherine [!] E. Beecher.

Beecher, Catharine E. (Catharine Esther), 1800-1878.

vi, 276 p. fold. map. 17cm.

New York,

J. B. Ford and company,

1874.

Page i view page image

EDUCATIONAL REMI\NISCENCES AND SUGGESTIONS. BY ,R,ATHARINE E. BEHR NEW

YORK: J. B. FORD AND - COMPANY. I 874. I’ BEECHER.

Page ii view page image

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year x874, by J. B.‘FORD AND

COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Page iii view page image

To AMERICAN WOMEN, WHO, AS HOUSEKEEPERS, MOTHERS, AND SCHOOL TEACHERS, ARE

TO DECIDE THE SAFETY AND PROSPERITY OF OUR COUNTRY, THIS WORK IS

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. I11 1) “I 14 I

Page iv view page image

I I

Page v view page image

TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION………………….. I CHAPTER II. WOMAN’S DOMESTIC DUTIES CULTIVATE THE INTELLECT. 4 CHAPTER

III. DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED……… 9 CHAPTER IV. ‘ HARTFORD

SEMINARY…………,. 27 CHAPTER V. HARTFORD SEMINARY-MENTAL

PHILOSOPHY….. 5 CHAPTER VI. WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE…………….

59 CHAPTER VII. WESTERN FEMALE INSTITUTE…………82 CHAPTER VIII. MISS

GRANT AND MISS LYON……………. 90 CHAPTER IX. GOVERNOR

SLADE…………… OO0 CHAPTER X. BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR

EDUCATION…… I1 4 CHAPTER XI. MILWAUKEE FEMALE COLLEGE………. 1 49

Page vi view page image

~~vi ~ CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. / COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS………. I60

CHAPTER XIII. TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES AND SUPERINTENDENTS. I77 CHAPTER

XIV. ” THE AMERICAN WOMAN EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.. 200 CHAPTER XV.

AMERICAN WOMEN: WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY?. 208 CHAPTER XVI. QUERIES AND

SUGGESTIONS………………….238

Page 1 view page image

CHAPTER S. INTRODUCTION. T is over half a century, that the author of this volume has devoted her time and chief attention to the higher education of woman, and has had a wide field both of observation and experience. Owing to this fact, frequent requests have been made for some records which will avail for the guidance of others who are commencing similar efforts. There are special reasons, at this time, for directing public attention to the topics in this work. The subject of “Woman’s Rights and Wrongs” is now agitating communities all over the nation, sustained by wide spread organizations of energetic, intelligent, and conscientious men and women, many of them in high positions of influence. The question of woman’s admission to men’s colleges and professional schools is exciting much discussion. The subject of woman’s health, as connected with methods of education, is involving many questions of difficulty and delicacy.

Page 2 view page image

2 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. The question as to hown. far the supervision and control of public schools and higher institutions of her own sex should be committed to women eqiaZly with men is another topic that is increasing in public interest and attention. This is especially a matter of more than ordinary interest, as very large benefactions for establishing institutions for women have recently been given exclusively to the control of business and professional men, who have had little or no experience in regard to female education, and who are seeking counsel from those who have had more. The personal history of the writer and her family, friends, and colaborers, will serve to illustrate some important principles of mind which have been too little regarded in family and school education. This contribution of past experience and observation includes a narrative of serious mistakes as well as of successes, which may serve both as needed warning and cheering encouragement. Especially will it illustrate the beneficent power committed to cultivated and benevolent American women, which it is hoped ere long will be more effectively organ

Page 3 view page image

INTRODUCTION.. ized, so as greatly to promote the safety and prosperity of our country. As it has become so common for authors and public characters to publish their own autobiography, and as much of the family history of the author is already before the public, what follows of that nature will be allowed without need of apology. 3

Page 4 view page image

CHAP TER ZI. WOMAN’S DOMESTIC DUTIES CULTIVATE THE INTELLECT. A LARGE
portion of housekeepers are neither wives nor mothers, and yet have the control and education of the young, who are either orphans, or servants, or children of friends. The aged and the sick also are dependent on their counsel and ministries; while often a family of boarders brings to their care and sympathy persons of all ages, characters and conditions. Thus many housekeepers have more difficult and complex duties than usually rest on mnost wives and mothers. These multiform duties call into constant exercise all the mental faculties, especially those popularly called the intellectual powers. Philosophers place among the intellectual powers what in common parlance are called sometimes Reason and sometimes Common Sense.

These are dependent on that feature of our mental organization which leads every sane mind to the feeling and belief that II

Page 5 view page image

INTELLECTUALITY OF DOMESTIC DUTIES. ‘~whatever is best for all concerned is right as fitted to secure the end for which all things are made.” For, without any metaphysical or theological training, all men say that whatever secures the most good with least evil to all concerned is right.

Thus the words best and rig,ht in practical questions express the same idea to the mass of mankind. This feature of our mental constitution is that which especially distinguishes man from the lower animals; for the beasts have no power to compare, to judge and reason as to what is best for all concerned, even for life, much less for the life to come. This distinctive feature of a rational being is constantly called into exercise by woman’s domestic duties. For a housekeeper must attend, contrive, reason and judge every hour of the day. She must compare, imagine, calculate and reason as to the best kind of house to seek; the best way of furnishing and ornamenting it; the best way of warming and ventilating it; the best heating apparatus and the way of managing it; the best cooking apparatus for economy, convenience and comfort; the 5

Page 6 view page image

6 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. best kinds of fuel for economy, health and convenience; the best way of storing and using it. She must arrange and provide the best kind of food for the young, the aged and the invalid; the best modes of purchasing, storing and preserving it; and the best modes of cooking, for health, economy and enjoyment. She must decide as to the best stuffs for clothes and furniture, the best way to cut, fit and mend; the best mode of washing and ironing, and the best way to’secure the neat and cleanly ways of comfort. A housekeeper is responsible for the health of all the inmates of her family; especially of children and servants who have not the needful knowledge and discretion. She must seek-the best modes of preserving health and of treating common illness so as to keep a doctor away or send for him when needed; she needs to know the best way of managing a new born infant and its mother; the best way to manage young children; the best way of training and controlling servants; the best way of giving religious instruction, and the best school for the children.’

All these topics of transcendent interest for both time and eternity are demanding the exercise of every

Page 7 view page image

INTELLECTUALITY OF DOMESTIC DUTIES. intellectual power for almost every woman who is a housekeeper. To these add the distinctive duties of the wife and mother, and there is another long list of questions to be considered, compared, reasoned’upon, and judged in settling what is the best and so the right course. It is true that in many of these duties a husband and father shares both care and responsibility. But many housekeepers have neither father nor husband. Moreover that vast majority of men who toil all day in the field, the shop, the mill, the store and the office, are at home but little during the day, and often are too wearied to bear any more burdens. The woman must, in such cases, do much of the contriving, executing and governing in the family state, and in almost every department; while the husband or father listens to her results with the veto power which in most sensible families is seldom used. In a family of children in humble or even moderate circumstances, the eldest daughter, almost in infancy, begins to share the duties and cares of the mother. She learns to help wash and dress the younger ones, to guard and regulate the impulses of an infant, and 7

Page 8 view page image

8 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. to contrive methods of safety and amusement.

She aids in teaching language, learns herself, and then teaches the younger to sew, knit, and perform many other domestic operations which demand intellectual effort and perseverance, as much so as any school study or exercise.

Page 9 view page image

CHAP TER HII. DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. T has been maintained in the previous pages that those duties of the family state which are woman’s distinctive profession tend to cultivate quick perception in observing, active imagination in contriving, abstraction and comparison in forming judgment, and a constant exercise of reason and common sense in determining what is best to be done or left undone in the manifold employments of a housekeeper, wife and mother. It is the object of what follows to illustrate this.position by the personal experience both of myself and of many of my colaborers in education. It was my good fortune to be born in humble circumstances, the eldest ot thirteen children, all but two trained to maturity, and most of them in a good degree under my care through infancy and childhood. My mother lived till I was fifteen, and she and her sisters taught me to read, write and spell, with a few lessons in geography. They

Page 10 view page image

10 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. also gave me a little instruction in arithmetic which was soon forgotten. They also taught me to sew neatly, to knit, to perform properly many kinds of domestic labor, and to aid in the care and training of the younger children. My mother taught me to draw and paint in water colors, and then to varnish with a fine white varnish she learned how to prepare from a small English Encyclopedia. When about fourteen I thus painted and varnished a chamber set of fine white wood made to order, including bureau, dressing table, candlestand, washstand and bedstead. These were ornamented with landscapes, fruits and flowers, and at that time were a great novelty. Much of my success in after life has been owing to certain traits in my mother’s character and their influence on my early training. These were a high ideal of excellence in whatever she attempted, a habit of regarding all knowledge with reference to its practical usefulness, and remarkable perseverance in holding on persistently till the object sought was attained. In illustration of these traits, at one time my father bought a bale of cotton simply be

Page 11 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. cause it was cheap, without the least idea or plan for its use. On its arrival, my mother projected a carpet for her parlor, such an article being unused through the whole primitive town, where in place of carpet were lumps of wet sand evenly trodden down, and then stroked with a broom into zig-zag lines. So she carded and spun the cotton, hired it woven, cut and sewed it to fit the parlor, stretched and nailed it to the garret floor, and brushed it over with thin paste. Then she sent to her New York brother for oil-paints, learned how to prepare them, from an Encyclopedia, and then adorned the carpet with groups of flowers, imitating those in her small yard and garden. In like manner she painted a set of old wooden chairs, adorned them with gilt paper cut in pretty figures, and varnished them. This illustrates the esthetic element of her character directed to practical usefulness, while her beautiful specimens of needlework, her remarkable paintings of fruits, flowers and birds, her miniature likenesses of friends on ivory, accomplished when the mother of four and five young children, a housekeeper and a teacher of a boarding school, are all illustrations of her high ideals 11

Page 12 view page image

12 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. and her perseverance in attaining excellence in most unfavorable circumstances. As teacher of drawing she was led to seek the rules of perspective in her small English Encyclopedia. There she encountered not only difficult mathematical problems in perspective, but also a mistake in one, which she persevered in studying till she discovered and rectified it. In some book of travels she had read of the Russian stove, and so with only her Encyclopedia and a common mason, she had one constructed which warmed six rooms with no more fuel than many of her neighbors used for one fire. One specimen of perseverance which especially attracted notice was a puzzle of iron rings.inserted in a steel bow so that it seemed impossible to take them out without breaking. Day after day, while nursing an infant, she persevered till she succeeded, to the wonder of all. Some of my own natural traits were decidedly the opposite of those of my mother, and what I accomplished in after life was in a good degree owing to her early training which modified these defects.

But oh, the mournful, despairing hours when I saw the

Page 13 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. children at their sports, and I was confined till I had picked out the bad stitches, or remedied other carelessness, or had completed my appointed “stents “! But I was trained to perfect and uncomplaining obedience, and after years of drilling I learned to perform whatever I attempted; at least with moderate excellence. But my good educators all had a hard task; for it seemed as if I had a decided genius for nothing but play and merriment. Yet, in due time, even in childhood, I was comforted by finding that my uninteresting toils, with long sheets to be over-sewed and pillow-cases to be neatly hemmed, and other family duties, could be made available to amusement. For I contrived with scissors, needle, paint, and other matters to construct dolls of all sizes, sexes, and colors, and surround them with all manner of droll contrivances. For instance, the Queen of Sheba, with a gold crown, and her negro driver were seated in a chariot made of half a pumpkin, scooped out, shaped, and furnished with wheels, while four crook-neck squashes were transformed to horses for the chariot. With my brother’s knife I whittled out ears and 13

Page 14 view page image

14 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. legs, and stuck them into the squashes; and I also made appropriate harness. When all was completed, I was amply rewarded by the surprise and hearty laugh of my father, and then by the merriment of all the family. My object in thus introducing this and other items of family history is to show that interest in practical duties not only tends to develop the intellectual powers, but that inequalities in mental powers may be remedied by appropriate culture. It is admitted that there are, in both sexes, high and low grades of mind, and that some minds have an original superiority in certain faculties that is usually called “genius.” But it can be shown that appropriate culture can raise the grade of mind, and sometimes secure a development equal to natural genius. And what is still better, such appropriate culture may rectify natural inequalities in mental character so as to produce that most perfect of all existences, a superior and well-balanced mind. I think that my mother’s natural and acquired traits tend to prove that there is in mind no distinction of sex, and that much that passes for natural talent is mainly the result of culture.

Page 15 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. For my father had that passionate love of children which makes it a pleasure to nurse and tend them, and which is generally deemed a distinctive element of the woman. But my mother, though eminently benevolent, tender, and sympathising, had very little of it. I cannot remember that I ever saw her fondle and caress her little ones as my father did; but her devotion to them seemed more like the pitying tenderness of a gentle angel. Then, again, my father was imaginative, impulsive, and averse to hard study; while my mother was calm and self-possessed, and solved mathematical problems, not only for practical purposes, but because she enjoyed that kind of mental effort. She had not the taste and talent for poetry that her sister Mary showed in early life, and her style of writing was simple, clear, and unornamented. But my father was quite the reverse in natural tendency to, illustration, and might have been a poet had his profession led to that culture. My father was trained as a dialectician, and felt that he excelled in argumentation; and yet my mother, without any such training, he remarked, was the only person he had met 15

Page 16 view page image

16 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. that he felt was fully his equal in an argument. Thus my father seemed, by natural organization, to have what one usually deemed the natural traits of a woman, while my mother had some of those which often are claimed to be the distinctive attributes of man. My mother had the refined and shrinking nature which made her unable to take the lead in general gatherings as ministers’ wives are expected to do, so that she was always seen to blush whenever in any way made conspicuous.

But at the same time, in sudden emergencies she had more strength and self-possession than my father. At sixteen, I lost this lovely mother, and her place for a considerable time was taken by my father’s only sister, Aunt Esther. From my father’s autobiography I transfer the following account (written by myself) of one who had a decided influence in forming certain habits and opinions, which greatly contributed to my future success. “The first event that followed the death of our mother was the removal of’ Aunt Esther, with her mother, to our house, to take charge of the family. What a sacrifice of personal

Page 17 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. tastes, ease, and comforts this was to them, can be better appreciated if we consider what was their character, what they gave up, and what they undertook to do. “Grandma Beecher was a fine specimen of the Puritan character of the strictest pattern. She was naturally kind, generous, and sympathizing, as has been seen in her great tenderness for animals; in her wise and patient accommodation to her husband’s’ hypochondriac infirmities; in her generous offer to give up her little patrimony rather than have Father, her step-son, taken from college. Conscience was the predominating element in her character. She was strict with herself and strict with all around. “Aunt Esther, her only child, was brought up under the most rigid system of rules, to which she yielded the most exact and scrupulous obedience; and yet, such was her mother’s fear that one so good and so bright would’think more highly of herself than she ought to think,’ that the result was most depressing on the character and happiness of the daughter. The habitual sense of her own’shortcomings; the dread of any increase of responsibilities; the fear of sinful failure in 17

Page 18 view page image

18 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. whatever she should attempt; the quiet life she had led for so many years with grandma in the’ little establishment of bedroom, parlor, and half a kitchen; her habits of extreme neatness and order-all these seemed to forbid even the wish that Aunt Esther should be asked to assume the management of such a household as ours. “But her love and sympathy for us overcame all impediments, and very soon her parlor opened from our north entry, her neat carpet, her bright brass andirons, with grandma in her rocking-chair, her trim, erect figure, with bright black eyes and arched eyebrows, all combining to induce carefulness, neatness and order around the premises. “Our mother’s early training was in the free and easy dominions of General Ward, while Grandma Foote’s chief doctrine was that everybody. especially children, should do everything and have everything they wanted. “At both Nutplains and East Hampton the style of housekeeping was of the simplest order, demanding little outlay of time or labor compared with more modern methods. The style of dress for children also required very

Page 19 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. little expense of material or of time in making. Our mother was gifted with great skill and celerity in all manner of handicraft, and was industrious in the use of time. Thus neither mantua-maker, tailoress, or milliner had ever drawn on the family treasury. “But kind, anxious, economical Aunt Esther had no gift in this line. As a close economist, as an accomplished cook, as systematic, orderly, and neat in all family arrangements, none could excel her, but with scissors and needle she felt helpless and less than nothing; so that, although she could patch and darn respectably; and grandma could knit and mend stockings, the preparation of wardrobes for the eight children rose before her as a mountain of difficulty. It was here that Father’s good sense, quick discernment, and tender sympathy intervened. He gently and tenderly made me understand the great kindness of grandma and Aunt Esther in giving up their own quiet and comfort to take care of us; he awakened my sympathy for Aunt Esther in her new and difficult position; he stimulated my generous ambition to supply my mother’s place in the care of the younger children, especially in the de 19

Page 20 view page image

20 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. partment in which he assured me he knew I would excel, and that was where Aunt Esther most needed help. “Happily, our mother’s skill in household handicraft was bequeathed in good measure to her daughters; and thus stimulated, I, for the first time, undertook all the labor of cutting, fitting, and making all the clothing of the children, as well as my own. So also, under Aunt Esther’s careful training, sister Mary and I were initiated into all the arts of kitchen labor, cheered and animated by the consciousness that it comforted father and relieved Aunt Esther. “There are some who control the young in such a way as to make them feel that all they do is nothing more than what they ought to do, and usually considerably less. Others have the happy faculty, which our father possessed in a remarkable degree, of discovering and rejoicing over unexpected excellence in character and conduct. He not only felt pleased and grateful when kindnesses were done to him and his, but he had the gift of expression. He not only discovered and appreciated all that was good in character and con-‘ duct, but he made known his pleased approval.

Page 21 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. “Oil and water were not more opposite than the habits of Father and Aunt Esther, and yet they flowed along together in all the antagonisms of daily life without jar or friction. All Aunt Esther’s rules and improvements were admired and commended, and, though often overriden, the contrite confession or droll excuse always brought a forgiving smile. Indeed, it was Father’s constant boast to Aunt Esther that, naturally, he was a man possessing great neatness, order, and system; that the only difficulty was, they were all inside, and that it was Aunt Esther’s special mission to bring them out. And he had a triumphant way of taking her around, whenever he arranged his outdoor implements or indoor surroundings in any respectable order, to prove to her that it was his nature to be orderly and careful. “In this new administration the older children were brought in as colaborers, inspired by the sympathetic, grateful and appreciative sentiments Father communicated to the family. All the children were in habits of prompt obedience, were healthful, cheerful, and full of activity. With these busy workers around, and Aunt Esther to lead, every room, from 21

Page 22 view page image

22 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. garret to cellar, was put in neat and regular trim; every basket, bundle, box, and bag was overhauled, and every patch, remnant, and shred laid out smooth, sorted, and rolled, folded, or arranged in perfect order; all aged garments were mended to the last extremity of endurance; pegs and hooks were put in position, where coats, pantaloons, jackets, hats, caps, bonnets, shawls, and cloaks were to conform to the rule,‘a place for everything, and everything in its place.’

The barn, the garden, and the orchard, were the only cities of refuge from this inflexible rule. “The special object of nightmare” dread to Aunt Esther was debt. The fear that under her administration the expenditures would exceed the salary could be relieved by no possible calculations; and so we learned, on every hand, rules of the closest economy and calculation. We were saved, however, from all uncomfortable retrenchments by the abundance of gifts from generous and sympathizing friends and parishioners. So we gained the benefits without the evils. But, in spite of all, Aunt Esther was burdened with ceaseless anxiety. The responsibility of providing for the family, the care of eight young

Page 23 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. children as to wardrobe, health, and behavior, and the thousand and one responsibilities that rested upon one so exact, so conscientious, and so self-distrustful, was a burden too great to bear, and we all felt anxious and troubled to see her so burdened; yet she rarely complained, seldom found fault, and never scolded. Whenever anything went wrong, or the children misbehaved, grandma’s black eyes peered over her spectacles like two cold stars, and Aunt Esther sighed, and looked discouraged and sad. “The experience of this year of our family history was similar to that of a landscape in sunshine suddenly overcast with heavy clouds. The gentle, contented, smiling, healthful mother was gone, and the sunlight of our home departed with her to return no more.” When I was sixteen, a second mother, aided by wealthy friends, introduced a more complete and refined style of housekeeping, which she had acquired or observed in the families of her two uncles, Gov. King, of Maine, and Rufus King, a former Ambassador of the United States to England. Under her quiet and lady-like rule, I again was trained to 23

Page 24 view page image

24 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. habits of system, order, and neatness entirely foreign to my natural, inherited traits. As it respects personal habits, while in the most unfavorable circumstances, she was a model of propriety and good taste. Though the mother of infants and step-mother to eight children, and at times with young lady boarders added to her cares, I think I never saw her appear in the morning, or at any other time, with an unneat or disordered dress. Her closets and drawers were at all times in perfect order;’ and even when most sleepingrooms are in confusion, hers was remarkable for its order. Her rule, for herself and for her subordinates, was always to put every article in its proper place as soon as it was released from use. For want of obedience to this rule, both housekeepers and servants, even after a general cleaning up, keep their surroundings in perpetual confusion. What she accomplished in our family in preserving punctuality, order, and neatness, with a husband and several children whose habits in these respects were directly contrary to her own, was a marvel. And it was done without the vulgar practice of scolding. She had a most sweet and gentle mode of speech, which, even in the most

Page 25 view page image

DOMESTIC TRAINING ILLUSTRATED. trying circumstances, never became load or harsh. That she sometimes failed in manifesting pleasure and words of approval at the well doing of subordinates, only proved that the best of women have opportunities for improvement. I came under her care just as I was entering a society including law students from almost every State in the Union, and from her I received instruction on those rules of delicacy and propriety so important for every young woman. At the same time, she was a pleasing example of atractive lady-like manners and excelled in cultivated and refined conversation. Some of the results of my domestic training under-such superior educators will appear in the following outline of my experiences as a school teacher. As to my school training, it amounted to very little. My mother, at the age of nine, had given me some instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and a good deal in drawing and painting, which suited my taste better than study. My teacher, Miss Sarah Pierce, received me when only ten years old in her large 25

Page 26 view page image

26 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. school of young ladies. She had a quiet relish for humor and fun that made her very lenient toward one who never was any credit to her as a pupil, while my father was equally indulgent.

Moreover, it was not till I left school, and Miss Pierce made her nephew, Mr. John P. Brace, her associate, that the higher branches were introduced, so that little else was required but the primary branches, drawing, painting, and music. In school and between schools I was incessantly busy in concocting or accomplishing plans for amusement. One of these methods, in which my funloving associates aided, was a fashion practised by many in the school, of adroit guessing. Then I would learn the answer sometimes to only one question, and my associates, by unnoticed change of places, would contrive to have it come to me. With these contrivances and a few snatches at books, I managed to slip along without much trouble. Occasionally my teacher would express wonder as to when and how my lessons were learned, and complimented me as “the busiest of all creatures in doing nothing.”

Page 27 view page image

CHA P TER I. HARTFORD SEMINARY. HE preceding particulars of personal and family history will indicate that much which is often ascribed to remarkable native talents, is result of appropriate culture. And in the following narrative of what has been accomplished by my colaborers and myself the last fifty years, it will be seen that it was achieved chiefly by good, common sense, persevering energy and high religious principle, and not by remarkable genius, or by the aid of that literary and scientific training sought in our colleges and regarded as a marked privilege of which women have been unjustly deprived. When nearly twenty I began preparation to teach, by taking lessons on the piano and in this, as in my domestic training, I was favored by a very thorough and accurate teacher. I had no special taste or talent in that direction as was manifest from the fact’ that when I was eleven years old, a lady parishioner gave me lessons for two years, and having no piano, I

Page 28 view page image

28 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. did not feel interest enough to accept her invitation or that of another friend to use their instruments. My success in this case was chiefly owing to the quickening of my faculties by interest in gaining alractical result, that o’f making myself independent, and aiding to support my family. For though I had forgotten both notes and keys, under the training of a friend warmly interested in my success, in a year and a half I was recommended to teach in a school, in New London, and play the organ in an Episcopal church. I also taught drawing and painting-having been further qualified by a lady who had taken lessons of the best masters in New York. But at that per iod -very humble performances in these ac complishments gave satisfaction. When, at twenty-twivo, I commenced pre paration to teach “the higher branches” in which I had had no knowledge, I also was favored by most thorough instruction from a friend in the family where I spent the winter. Then it was that I first took in hand the mys tical performances in DabolI’s Arithmetic, and as my domestic training had formed a habit of enquiring why any practical operation was

Page 29 view page image

I-IARTFORD SEMINARY. to be performed, I began to annoy my teacher with demanding we,y the figures were to be put thus, and so, and why a given answer was gained. And so when I had pupils in this branch I taught as no book then in use did, and finally made an arithmetic first issued in manuscript by my teachers, and then published. Of this book Prof.

Olmstead, of Yale College, wrote to me thus: “Your Arithmetic I have put into the hands of my children, giving it a decided preference over those in common use. Reflecting how I might best serve you, it has occurred to me that when your revised edition is out, I may write a notice of it, more or less extended, for the Christian Spectator, which could be used by your publisher.” This fact is the more striking, because of all studies I ever attempted this was both the most difficult and most uninteresting; so that my success was wholly owing to the interest xcited by its practical usefulness in my profession. That same winter, beside completing Daboll, I went through Day’s Algebra, a few exercises in Geometry, a work on Logic, and two small works prepared for schools, on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. 29

Page 30 view page image

30 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. Then, associated with my next sister, I commenced a school for young ladies in Hartford, Conn. We began in the upper chamber of a store with seven young ladies, receiving none under twelve; and my younger sister (now Mrs. H. B. Stowe) joined us as a pupil when she had attained that age. Soon the increase of pupils removed us to a larger chamber, and thence to the basement of a church, where nearly one hundred young ladies had only one room, no globe or large maps, and, most of the time, no blackboard, and only two teachers. At this time I had heard that Mrs. Willard and one or two others were teaching the higher branches, but I knew nothing of their methods. All the improvements I made were the result of the practical training of domestic life, in which the constant aim had been to find the best way of doing anything and everything; together with the very thorough manner in which, at mature age, I was taught. Owing to previous neglect in the proper training of my pupils, I had to form classes in different degrees of advancement in all the primary branches, in addition to those in the higher branches, and, in consequence, scarcely

Page 31 view page image

HIARTFORD SEMINARY. ten minutes could be allowed to each class for recitation; and even then, I had to employ some of my best scholars as assistant pupils, a method which afterwards was reduced to a system and proved a most invaluable method, as will be shown hereafter. But at this time the whole process of our school-keeping consisted in trying to discover how much each pupil had committed to memory without any help from her teacher; nor could it be ascertained how much was clearly understood, or how much was mere memorizing of words. To preserve order while attending to recitations all in one room, to hear such a succession of classes in so many different studies, to endure such a round of confusion, haste and imperfection, with the sad conviction that nothing was done as it should be, now returns to memory as a painful and distracting dream.

The only pleasant recollection is that of my own careful and exact training under my most accurate and faithful brother Edward, and my reproduction of it to my sister Harriet and two others of my brightest pupils. With them, I read minost of Virgil’s ,Eneid and Bucolics, a few of Cicero’s Orations, and some of the finest parts of Ovid 31

Page 32 view page image

32 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. portions of the last being turned into English verse by one of the class. In addition to their proficiency as scholars, knowing my love of humor, they frequently contrived to inter sperse some merriment with their lessons. For example, when studying the story of Phoebus delivering the chariot of the Sun to his son Phaeton, they remembered that old ladies driving a horse and chaise, and having np other resource, would sometimes double up the long reins and use them as a whip. And so, in the passage where Phoebus, with tearful eyes, delivered the reins, he said: “Parce, puer, stimulis, et fortius utere loris.” -Ovid Meta., II. I27. When they came to this line, all of them restraining their merriment and looking as usual, one of them translated it thus: Oh, my son, save the whip, And use the ends of the reins! They were rewarded, first by my puzzled look of astonished inquiry, followed by a burst of simultaneous laughter, so long continued as to attract the whole school to learn the cause. At the end of four laborious years, I drew

Page 33 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. the plan of the present seminary, except the part containing the Calisthenic hall,-Mr. Daniel Wadsworth aiding in preparing the front elevation. This I submitted to some of the leading gentlemen of Hartford, and asked to have such a building erected by subscription. Many of them were surprised and almost dismayed at the ” visionary and impracticable” suggestion, and when it became current that I wanted a study hall to hold one hundred and fifty pupils, a lecture room, and six recitation rooms, the absurdity of it was apparent to most of the city fathers, and, with some, excited ridicule. But the more intelligent and influential women came to my aid, and soon all I sought was granted. This was my first experience of the moral power and good judgment of American women, which has been my chief reliance ever since. It was eight years from the commencement of my school, when, my health beginning to fail, I was requested, by the trustees, to prepare a statement of my modes of teaching and management for the use of my successors. This was put, in an enlarged form, in as mall volume entitled, Suggestions on Education, which excited much 33

Page 34 view page image

34 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. attention both at home and in Europe. It was noticed in an article in the North American Review, then the chief American periodical, and also in the Rzevue Encyyclopedique, the leading literary periodical of,urope. The following is a brief outline of that volume with additional particulars. My first attempt was to secure, as far as possible, the division of labor and responsibility Peculiar to our college system. To each teacher was given the charge of only two or three branches, and with her were associated the brightest and best scholars in her classes as assistant pupils. I trained the teachers, they repeating the same drill to the assistant pupils, who thus were prepared to become teachers. For I deemed it as important to learn how to communicate as to acquire knowledge. This method enabled me to have small classes, and to put together, in one class, only those equal in abilities and acquirements; so that none were hurried forward and none retarded for the sake of others, as is the common fault of large classes. Thus, in Arithmetic, there were at one time, say, three classes in diverse degrees of advancement in three

Page 35 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. adjacent recitation-rooms, the walls of which were lined with blackboards. In these, from six to ten pupils were simultaneously performing exercises under the care of an “assistant pupil,” while the teacher responsible for these branches was passing from one room to another, either superintending or teaching. Another feature was the generalization of the leading principles of each study, and the avoidance of details. Thus in Arithmetic, instead of the usual long and multitudinous examples under each of “the ground rules,” the pupils were trained to do, at one time, a simple problem in Common Addition, Compound Addition, Addition of Vulgar and of Decimal Fractions, and then to point out wherein these methods were alike, and where. they differed. The same was required in Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division. It was found that, when this was thoroughly mastered, but very few of the many other processes which fill our school Arithmetics were needful, or they could easily be acquired at any time in after-life, when cube-roots, tare and tret, and other practical exercises were needed, as they rarely are, by a woman in her domestic affairs. 35

Page 36 view page image

36 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. So in geography, Woodbridge & Willard’s Geography was the textbook in which very short lessons were given to commit to memory, and each recitation-hour was chiefly occupied, by the teacher, with interesting connected details of history or accounts of travelers. The plan of that Geography, with this method of recitation, saved an immense amount of time and labor required by most of our geographies. For example, after the isothermal lines were thoroughly understood, and the productions and animals of the globe classified according to these lines, a pupil could tell the chief productions of any country in the world without further study. But most geographies now require an account of the productions of each separate country, unaided by such generczlization, thus greatly increasing the demand on time and labor. The same method was adopted in many other cases by generalizations not found in geographies that have supplanted this one so much more philosophical. Another method was associating kindred and connected branches. Thus the lessons of geography and history would be connected with simultaneous periods in polite literature

Page 37 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. and the history of civilization, and the exercises in composition would sometimes be arranged with the same general object.

Another method attempted was to excite an interest for discovering new or other methods than those of the textbook. For example, the classes in Geometry were told that there was more than one method for demonstrating the 47th Prop. of Euclid, and all were excited to discover another, and it was most interesting to witness the intellectual activity and the enthusiasm of success in so large a proportion of the pupils. In teaching Reading, we had remarkable advantages and success. Near that time, first appeared Dr. Rush’s philosophical work on the Cultivation of the Human Voice, and Dr. Barber, a Professor of Elocution from one of the English Universities, who adopted methods suggested by Dr. Rush, came to this country. After he had taught classes at Harvard with great approval, I engaged his services for my classes. At that time, Miss Caroline Munger was one of my teachers, who had a remarkably charming voice, and, with Dr.

Barber to aid, became the finest and most agreeable reader I ever heard.

She was also 37

Page 38 view page image

38 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. enthusiastic in her efforts in training her classes and remedying defects, and her success was remarkable. Our method of correcting bad spelling was new at that time, and very successful, but need not here be detailed. In teaching Grammar on the blackboard, I have seen the youngest pupils gain, in two or three weeks, all that was of any use until they came to practice our exercises in composition. These methods secured in a few months what often in our common schools is the uninteresting labor ot years, as alternately learned vaguely and then forgotten, then learned again, and again forgotten. The art of composition has seldom been made the subject of instruction in schools, and the success of classes under the care of my sister, Mrs. Stowe, was so remarkable that the methods pursued are worthy of notice. The first exercise was to provide a stock of words, by reading a short, classical story, explaining the meaning of every new or difficult word, and then requiring the pupils to use these words as they wrote the story on a slate, we having already explained and illustrated on the blackboard the use of capitals, punc

Page 39 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. tuation, and paragraphing. Then these slates were corrected by the teacher and assistant pupils, and, next day, the composition was neatly copied, folded properly, and brought to the teacher. These exercises were to be constantly varied as to the authors and subjects selected, and all but copying was to be done in the Composition Room. Next, an extract from some classic writer was read over twice, and then the pupils wrote the principal words in this passage, their meaning being first explained. Then the passage was read a third time, and the pupils were required to write on their slates the same passages as nearly as remembered, introducing all the words given them.

This also was criticised and corrected by the teacher and assistant pupils, to be neatly copied and returned next day. The teacher would daily select passages from a variety of standard classic writers, point out the peculiarity of style in each; while the pupils, by thus imitating various authors, gradually acquired both a large stock of words and facility in varied modes of expression and style of writ ing. Next was taught methodical arrangement. 39

Page 40 view page image

40 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. This the teacher first explained and illustrat ed by a general outline of an article, followed by the reading of it, thus analyzed. Then the pupils copied on slates, from dictation, this skeleton or analysis, and were required to fill it out and bring it next day, having heard the piece read the second and perhaps the third time in the class-room. Next, the teacher selected a subject and pro posed questions to excite inquiry and discus sion. Then, she gave her own views on the subject, and the way she would prepare her outline or skeleton.

Then the pupils were re quired each to prepare a skeleton, which was duly criticised, and next day it was to be filled out by the class and presented for correction and criticism. This last exercise was often repeated. Next was taught the use of poetic language, by first instructing in the use of poetic feet and rhymes, and then requiring a short piece of poetry to be turned to prose, and then, with out committing to memory, to change the prose back to poetry. To mature and advanced pupils, unity and method were taught, by giving some essay with several chapters (for example, one of Macau

Page 41 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. lay’s essays), and then requiring a written statement of the plan of the whole; then, an analysis of each chapter; then, of each paragraph, and its connexion with the whole. When this was all completed, the pupil was supposed to be prepared to write a composition This method was so interesting that the composition hour was looked forward to as the pleasantest part of school duty; and the results were such as, on any other plan, would seem incredible in pupils of such immaturity, were the method pursued unknown. Of course, in this, as in all other branches, success depends to a large extent on the qualifications of the teacher, and the power of exciting interest in the pupils. Another important particular was the exact and thorough knowledge gained by repetitions of lessons and general examinations. When any kind of knowledge is gained with little interest and in an indistinct way, it soon fades from the memory, and thus many pupils lose nearly as fast as they gain. Our method was a weekly review, with the’anticipation of a fortnight public examination before visitors at the close of each term. And if laggards 41

Page 42 view page image

42 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. were found in any class, they were liable to be detained after school and drilled till the neglected lesson was perfect. Our aim was to have all so perfect in daily lessons that the weeks of examination would not be periods of unusual exertion except to the dull or the negligent, who were then special objects of attention from the chief teachers. Indeed, it was the rule to give most care and labor to the weaker lambs of the fold, whatever were the causes of their deficiencies. It is too often the case that, for the credit of the school or the pleasure of teaching the brightest and best, this rule is reversed.

Another method, and one that excited the most notice, both in this country and abroad, was-the attempt to remedy defects of mind, body, and habits, and the conviction, strongly expressed, that this is practicable, and should be the prominent aim of all educators. This important principle was so successfully illustrated, even in so short a time and with such limited advantages, that some details to illustrate will be given. The attempt to remedy’ physical defects came about in this manner: An English lady of fine person and manner came to us as a

Page 43 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. teacher of what then had no name, but now would be called Calisthenics. She gave a large number of the. exercises that are in my work on Physiology and Calisthenics, published by the Harpers, and narrated how she had cured deformities in others by her methods. What interested us most was her assurance that, until maturity she had a curvature of the spine that was a sad deformity, being what was called a humpback, and yet there she was, a model of fine proportion and gracefulness. The whole school took lessons of her, and I added others; and though the results were not conspicuous, they convinced me that far more might be done in this direction than was ever imagined or would be credited without ocular demonstration. From this came the system of Calisthenics which I invented, which spread all over the country, and which Dio Lewis, courteously giving me due credit, modified and made additions to, some of which I deem not improvements but objectionable, for reasons stated elsewhere. Still more interesting were some of our attempts in remedying intellectual defects. For example, our best mathematical teacher came with the case of a bright pupil who could not 43

Page 44 view page image

44 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. be made to understand the reasoning process in demonstrating a proposition in Euclid. She had a quick memory, would learn the letters and the demonstration as a mere memoriter exercise, and when, in the diagram, the teacher substituted figures or letters, in a few minutes she would commit to memory the change so as to repeat the exercise as a mere effort of memory. I took the case myself, and( at first was convinced of an entire lacking of some mental power. But perseverance conquered, and, as soon as she understood the process, she was delighted with her lessons, and eventually became one of my best teachers in mathematics. In another case, a pupil, who was not remarkably bright in any direction, seemed entirely destitute of the faculties that appreciate poetry and fine writing. Mrs. Stowe having her in her class of composition, we experimented as to what could be done to remedy this deficiency. The result was she not only acquired a taste for poetry and imaginative writing, but composed a piece of poetry which was read at our public examination as one of the best selections of composition. These examples, among many others, were

Page 45 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. proof of the possibility of remedying, to a certain extent, any intellectual defect, and of the practicability of thus securing, by educational training, a well-balanced mind. Another feature of the school, which at that time was unusual, was the mode of government pursued. One of the teachers, whose character was suited to such duties, was appointed Governess. Her duties included the care of the building and apparatus, and the enforcing of rules of order and neatness. She presided in the study hall, assembled and dismissed school, attended to the sending and return of classes, saw that each class had its teacher, received daily reports of lessons and behavior, and kept a record and school journal.

Excuses, permissions, and acknowledgements of violated rules were made to the Governess, and, while presiding in the hall, she attended to classes in penmanship. This released the teachers from all these responsibilities.

At first, the principles of competition and emulation were freely employed, but experience taught a safer and better way; for a school of one hundred and fifty was more perfectly governed without these principles 45

Page 46 view page image

46 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. than by their aid. No prizes were given, no rewards were offered for any degree of conmparative merit, but the following were the chief methods employed: The pupils from abroad, numbering I20 to i6o, were distributed into such private fami-i lies as would cooperate in promoting a healthful moral influence, and, in most cases, with a teacher in the same family. Multitudes all over the land will remember with gratitude Mrs. Dr. Cogswell, Mrs. Maj. Caldwell, Mrs.

Dr. Strong, Mrs. Henry L. Ellsworth, Mrs. William Watson, and other ladies of high position, culture, and religious principle, who were happy to aid in this good work by receiving a teacher, and from four to ten scholars as boarders, and who proved invaluable helpers in all efforts for the good of the school. Next and chief was the harmonious personal influence of the teachers. It was expected that they would mingle with the scholars as companions, to aid in their studies and share their amusements, and thus gain a knowledge of their habits and peculiarities. The sympathy and cooperation of the ten or twelve assistant pupils was equal to that of the prinn

Page 47 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. cipal teachers, and, in some cases, was superior, owing to their more intimate access to their companions. At the frequent meeting of my teachers and assistant pupils, the names of all the pupils were called over, and suggestions sought as to what each one needed, and then those requiring most attention were committed to the special love and care of the one best qualified to aid. Every morning it was my duty to read the Bible and conduct the religious worship, the teachers all being present, and prepared to cooperate in all that I proposed for moral and religious culture. In all the duties urged, I always found authority and support in the Divine Word. I endeavored to present God as a loving Father, and to make it plain that his “glory,” like that of earthly parents, consisted in the virtue and true happiness of all his children. I showed them that there are right ways and wrong ways of making ourselves and others happy; that Jesus Christ came to teach the only right way; and that those only can be truly and forever happy who make it their chief aim to follow his example and teachings. I showed them that our Heavenly Parent is chiefly glorious as the 47

Page 48 view page image

48 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. Gieat Hatppiness Mfaker, and that the first sermon of our Lord teaches that it is by making true happiness that we become children of God.* By such public instructions, and by private meetings for prayer and conversation with both teachers and scholars, a silent religious influence pervaded the school. Each teacher and assistant pupil, and all the scholars who had commenced a religious life, were requested to select at least one member of the school who was not thus committed, and suggestions were made as to the best way to exert an influence either by conversation or notes. At these private meetings, results were reported and further counsel obtained. Thus for several years, every term witnessed what would be called a “revival of religion,”

though like the kingdom of Heayen which “cometh without observation,” it was quiet and gentle as the falling of the dew. Many were, thus, not only led to commence a religious life, but were taught the duty and *” Blessed are the happiness-makers, for they are the children of God” is the most correct translation from the Syriac Greek, which was the language of Jesus Christ. I

Page 49 view page image

HARTFORD SEMINARY. best methods of influencing others. Such success imparted the conviction that, should moral and religious influence have its proper place in the methods of any school, few pupils would ever leave it destitute of a true and cheerful piety. But, in order to such success, it would be requisite that at least one properly qualified teacher should have it her special department thus to guide other teachers as her helpers, to watch over the habits, correct the faults and form the principles of all the pupils. In the celebrated institution of Fellenberg, at Hofwyll, there was one class of educators in distinction from those teachers whose chief labor was the communication of knowledge and the developing of intellect. Education in this country will never reach its highest end, till the care of the physical, social, and moral interests shall take precedence of mere intellectual development and acquirements.

In this account, reference is had chiefly to the last years of my care of the school, after the teachers had more or less learned to share my responsibilities. All espionage by which the misconduct of companions was reported, involving dis 49

Page 50 view page image

50 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. grace or penalties, was discouraged. But it is rarely the case that any pupils will object to having their companions speak freely of their faults, when a teacher with the best of motives seeks to know deficiencies thati1they may be remedied. It can easily be found who are willing, and those who are not should receive increased care and watchfulness from the teachers. Few, except those who have followed a similar course, are aware how practicable it is to cure almost every defect of person, habits, manners, temper, and principles. The indolent can be made industrious, the volatile be made regular, the ill-natured, amiable, the selfish, regardful of the feelings and rights of others, the obstinate and impracticable, yielding and docile. But to do all this requires a rare degree of self-denial, patience, perseverance, and ingenuity in the teacher, together with experience and instruction from those who have had experience. It was this part of my report that excited special attention at home and abroad, as manifested in the appended extract from the Revue ~ncyclopdciqize, at that time the leading periodical of Europe.* *See Appendix on page 59.

Page 51 view page image

CHAP TER V. HARTFORD SEMINARY-MENTAL PHILOSOPHY. HE most remarkable case ofthe culture of undeveloped or deficient intellectual faculties, in the Hartford Seminary, was my own. In Mental Philosophy I had neither taste nor acquirements, and so I gave my first class in that study to a teacher who claimed to be much interested in it. She was my room-mate, and an entire novice in abstrzict reasoning. She had a very intelligent class, who plied her with questions, so that she was constantly appealing to me for aid. Eventually, I took the class myself. Soon I became deeply interested in this study; for I had been led to-my profession by most profound and agitating fears of dangers in the life to come, not only for myself, but for a dear friend who, according to the views in which I had been trained, had died unprepared. “What must we do to be saved?” became the agonizing inquiry for myself and all I loved most. While I was simultaneously teaching Men

Page 52 view page image

52 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. tal Philosophy and the Bible, I gradually learned that the interpretation of the Bible and the true mode of training mind to safety in both this and the future life were based on the nature of mind and the proper modes of control as developed in philosophical writings. Thus excited by the .practical bearing of the study, I sought and read Locke, Reid, Stewart, Brown, and other works in English, and also went to those who read Greek and German for the views of Aristotle and Kant. In this course, I not only gained great relief as to religious views, but much to aid in the culture of mind. Then I began to give lectures to the school, and, finally, I had them printed as a textbook for my classes. Ere long, alarm began to spread in the city at views supposed to be contrary to the established orthodoxy, and this led me to submit the book anonymously to the leaders of thought in both the literary and religious world. By the aid of friends, bound to secrecy as to authorship, the work was sent with a request for full criticism. All the copies then distributed were returned to me, some with letters, others with penciled criticisms on the margin

Page 53 view page image

STUDY OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY. of the pages;-all the writers supposing the author to be a gentleman. The following from Prof. Ware of Harvard University is a specimen of what I received from the more liberal of my critics. What came from the orthodox will be noticed elsewhere: “The author is certainly entitled to no small praise for courage and independence in expressing opinions and also for presenting them in a more distinct and intelligible form than usual. This, I trust, will lead many persons to re-examine the grounds of their faith, and with a better understanding of the evidences on which it is founded. “I beg the Author to accept my thanks for the opportunity to peruse an unpublished book in which I have found so much to admire and approve, together with some doctrines which are far from my own views of religious truth. Yet I should be glad to see them published to the world, believing that free and unreserved discussion, and the full expression of opinions of honest minds, have the best tendency to the discovery and establishment of truth.

Respectfully, HENRY WARE. These criticisms I received just as I was departing to Cincinnati, carrying with me some fifty copies of the book, from which I deemed it prudent to cut out the heretical pages. There I became acquainted with Professor McGuffey of Miami University, Ohio, afterward Professor of Mental Philoso i:

Page 54 view page image

54 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. phy in the University of Virginia. After reading the book, he introduced it as the textbook of his college class, and at the close of that term wrote to me thus: “We however have not discharged our obligations to you when the book is paid for. For my part, I have rarely derived more pleasure or advantage from the same number of pages. Your book possesses, in no ordinary degree, that best of all qualities in a text book, incentives to investigation. In many things I esteem it fearlessly original, as well as felicitously correct. I should rejoice to see a new edition supplying the cancelled pages, and perhaps the causes that induced this suppression do not now exist in equal force.”

A professor in another institution wrote to a friend of mine thus: “We have sent for Abercrombie’s work on Mental Science, but I doubt whether it will be of much use to us. I think the plan of Miss Beecher’s work would suit better in this country than any other I have met. Coudyou procure some copies from her for us? ” These evidences of success from such competent judges were sent to a woman who, at the age of twenty-seven, had never read a work on Mental Science, owing to, want of interest in the subject, and who completed the book in about four years from the time she first gave any attention to metaphysical investigations.

Page 55 view page image

STUDY OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY. In my own case, it is certain that I had no natural tendency to metaphysical pursuits, and yet it is in this direction that my mind has developed more than in any other; while artistic pursuits or works of imagination would seem to have been what my natural tastes would have sought. So in other cases of our family history;-the two authors most prominent before the public are those who had remarkable culture in the direction that secures success. It has been shown that when only ten and eleven years of age Mrs. Stgwe was so much interested in the teachings of Mr. Brace, that ihey led her, even before she had acquired a legible handwriting, to write compositions with great interest. Then, at thirteen, she was trained by myself in the same direction, and continued for years as a teacher of composition by methods which cultivate scope of language and variety of both ideas and style of expression. The result of culture, in the case of my brother, Henry Ward, was still more evident, for he had that organization which often, in early childhood, passes for dullness. He also had great deficiency in verbal memory, a deficiency affecting him through 55

Page 56 view page image

56 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. life. His utterance was thick and indistinct, partly from bashfulness, and partly from an enlargement of the tonsils of the throat, so that in speaking and reading he was with difficulty understood. His good Aunt Esther said, “When Henry is sent with a message, I always have to make him say it over three times before I am sure I understand aright.” His progress in book learning was slow, but, as Mrs. Stowe remarks in her biography of this brother, it was the opinion of those controlling him, that, though a poor scholar and an inveterate joker, he had much talent lying loosely in him if he could only be made to apply himself. When set to studying Latin in the then uninteresting modes of the Boston public schools, under a strict regimen he became desperate, and planned to run away and become a sailor, with the career of Lord Nelson as the ideal of his ambition. His father wisely adopted this enthusiastic aim as a motive power and urged him to studying to prepare himself for such a career. So he sent him to a school where his teacher was not only accurate and thorough, but one that gained his enthusiastic attachment. Thus, love and hope conquered.

Page 57 view page image

STUDY OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY. He often remarked of this and his college course, “by Latin and mathematics I gained the power to study.” But the Latin and Greek classics did not attract him, because cold, unexciting, and having no practical bearing;, especially after he commenced his life-work of winning souls to virtue and piety. So he gave no more attention to them than would secure a respectable but not a prominent position as a scholar. After he chose the ministry for his profession, he studied with great enthusiasm the language which was to be his chief instrument in his life-work. He especially made himself familiar with’the clear and vigorous writers of the early English classics,-Massinger, Ford, Webster, and other writers little noticed in this day. He studied also, with deep interest, the philosophy of mind, as to mold and guide it was to be his profession. Beside the standard works on this subject, he was deeply interested in the teachings of Gall and Spurzheim, and the science of phrenology, and also physiology as connected with his practical duties.

Oratory and rhetoric he regarded as his appointed weapons, and, here again, he was favored with a remarkably persevering 57

Page 58 view page image

58 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. and thorough teacher, who drilled him till he overcame his constitutional disabilities, and trained him to gestures and bodily movement as faithfully as the West Point drill, though by diverse methods.’ These additional particulars of family history still further illustrate the unappreciated yet fundamental principles of education, namely, that woman’s domestic duties eminently tend to develop and train the intellect; that some interesting practical end is indispensable to the development of mind; and that what often passes for great genius and superior talent is frequently the result of wise and appropriate culture.

Page 59 view page image

CHA P TER VI. WOM4N’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. HE painful termination of my connection with the Hartford Seminary, after such successful effort, is connected with circumstances which should be deeply pondered by those who are founding or controlling institutions for women. In order to this it is important that there should be more correct ideas of what constitutes the true feature of a college in distinction from a high school or academy; for when that ,is determined it will be seen that there never yet has existed a college for women, though many schools for young girls have assumed this ambitious name. The distinctive feature of a college is endowments, which secures a faculty of coequal teachers, and such a division. of labor, that, as the aim and general rule, each professor is re sponsible for instructing only one or two classes only one or two hours a day in only

Page 60 view page image

60 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. one or two departments. For this he secures a home, a salary to support a family, and an honorable profession for life. In every college thus endowed, the whole responsibility of government rests, not on an individual, but equally upon the whqle faculty, who decide every thing by a majority vote. Then the corporation take certain responsibilities, the finances are managed by a treasurer, and the boarding is provided by clubs or private families-so, that the faculty are relieved from all these cares. Thus each member of the faculty is enabled to secure time for self-improvernent and for the advancement of his special department, and is entirely independent of control from any individual. In consequence of these advantages, the highest class of instructors are secured; while all their pupils have a chance to prepare themselves for some one of the departments to which taste and talent would lead, and which would secure a home, a salary, and an honorable profession. At the same time libraries, apparatus, and other facilities for improvement are provided by public or private benefactions. The preceding history of the Hartford

Page 61 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. Seminary shows a painful contrast to the advantages provided in colleges for young men. I began teaching and employing teachers without the previous preparation given to boys in preparatory schools, for no such had ever been offered to girls; and so I was obliged to train most of my teachers, as well as myself. Then no library or apparatus was provided, nor could the limited income from my’tuition fees secure them. Then I was obliged to take the expenses and cares of housekeeping for several years, while all the instruction and government of the institution and finances rested on me alone. The selection and control of teachers and the course of study and the textbooks rested solely with me. Thus I had all the responsibilities which in colleges are divided among the faculty, treasurer and boardinghouse-keeper, and at the same time taught four and five hours a day. All this on one woman, ignorant of her peculiar organization and of the danger of overworking brain and nerves. True, I took eight hours for sleep, dressed healthfully, exercised an hour or two in open air, and gave each day an hour or two to social relaxation. But for twelve waking 61

Page 62 view page image

62 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. hours I was under constant pressure of labor and responsibility. A few extracts of letters from my sister, Mrs. Stowe, then only eighteen, will show the consequent results of such varied responsibilities in connection with the following episode, which also iliustrates the moral power in the hands of the highest class of American women, a power which it is hoped will ere long be organized to secure more liberal educational advantages. In the year i828 the attempt was made by the State of Georgia to drive out the Cherokee Indians by cruel and unjust methods. While I was spending a vacation at Boston, Mr. Jeremiah Evarts gave to me a most interesting narrative of the success of the Board of Missions,- of which he was chief secretary, among these Indians, and of the distressing and disastrous consequences that would result from the cruel measures undertaken. He said that American women might save these poor, oppressed natives, and asked me to devise some method of securing such intervention. I was greatly excited, and on my return wrote a circular ” To Benevolent WVomen of the United States.” I then sought the aid and council of some of the most judicious and influential

Page 63 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCEF-AN EPISODE. ladies of Hartford; such, for example, as Mrs. Daniel Wadsworth, Mrs. Thomas Chester, Mrs. Sigourney, and others of similar character and position. A meeting was convened, and after the circular was read, these measures were adopted: The circular was to be printed anonymously by a printer enjoined to secrecy, and all the ladies pledged themselves to similar secrecy. Then each lady gave the name of lady friends in some of the principal cities of the Northern, Middle and Western States; and it was remarkable how large a number were thus collected. Then a printed letter was sent to these ladies with a large number of the circulars, requesting each lady to whom these were directed to send them through the PostOffice to “the most influenfitial and benevolent ladies of her acquaintance. The measures proposed in the circular, were to secure public meetings in behalf of the Cherokees and then to circulate petitions and gain as many signatures as possible, to be sent to Congress, praying for the intervention of the National Government to protect the Indians. The’result exceeded our most sanguine expectations. A simultaneous movement occurred, public meetings 63

Page 64 view page image

64 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. were held in all the cities to which our circulars went, and many other towns and cities followed the example. Then there followed a wide-spread inquiry as to who wrote the circular. At our occasional meetings we were greatly amused at what each received from friends of the different cities, and no less at our narrow escapes from falsehood in efforts to preserve our secret. A lady wrote from New Haven how greatly they were excited there, and their wonder as to who wrote the circular and how the plan was so well managed. I was asked one day by an outsider who I supposed wrote that circular, and I replied that it was attributed by many to Mrs. Sigourney, but it was not at all in her style, and much more like that of a gentleman I mentioned. I added that I never read anything that interested me so much, and so I escaped betraying our secret without an untruth. At a Teacher’s Meeting one of them report ed that Prof. Silliman said that the circular was “worthy the pen of the elder Pitt;” whereupon I was dubbed old Mrs. Pitt by my sister and those who were aiding in the labor of preparing and sending the circulars.

Page 65 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. None of these circulars were mailed in Hartford but we contrived to have them all sent the Sme day from four cities, and we received copies ourselves from New York and Philadelphia.

Not at all aware of the consequences of this additional excitement, I suddenly found myself utterly prostrated and unable to perform any school duty without extreme pain and such confusion of thought as seemed like approaching insanity. My sister and my teachers urged immediate relinquishment of all my cares; so I went to visit some friends, and in this interval received the following letters from my sister (Mrs. Stowe).

In them it will be seen that I had projected an effort to obtain an endowment that would secure Miss Z. P. Grant as an Associate to divide with me the responsibilities I was no longer able to bear alone. I was led to this effort by a simultaneous demand on the citizens of Hartford to endow a college for young men, although at that time Yale College was only thirty miles off, and offered all and more advantages than a new college could supply. But the new college must come, and my seminary must wait till a better day, when women will seek 65

Page 66 view page image

66 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. and secure equal advantages with their brothers-a day which as yet is only at its dawn. Before my departure I arranged with my teachers that during my absence the school should be resolved into a sort of republic, and attempt self-government at least for a short experiment. All were anxious about my health, and teachers and scholars cheerfully agreed to all I proposed. So I divided the scholars into circles, with a teacher at the head of each, and to each circle was committed one department of my responsibilities. Thus there were the Circles of Order, of Neatness, of Lessons, of Punctuality, and of Benevolence, and in the last I put some of the most reckless and troublesome girls with some of the most consci entious. The names of other circles I have forgotten. Dec. i o, 1829. DEAR SISTER-As you have requested, I write as to the state of affairs in your forsaken dominion.

This evening I met my circle, and the conversation gave me rr.uch pleasure. I told them of your difficulties, and that the teachers pledged themselves that they and the young ladies would do all intheir power to’pre

Page 67 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. serve the character of the school in your absence. They all seemed engaged and anxious to aid. Poor children! they seemed to feel as if the weight of the nation were on them. Mary Ely’s laughing visage was drawn into an expression of judgmatical gravity, Clarissa looked seriously concerned, and Ann Terry talked feelingly of their heavy responsibilities. They proposed several plans which they thought would conduce to the regularity of the school. There are some in the Circle of Benevolence that are the only exception. They wish tohave fun, and that is all for which they seem to care. But this will do no harm, for the other circles are all anxious to have the plan succeed, and the current of public sentiment is so strong against irregularity and disorder that they will soon yield to it. On the whole, dear sister, I think this plan will be productive of great good. If nothing else, it will form a habit in the school of acting with the teachers and sharing some of their trials. This evening I convened “the Senate of the Skies,” and we concluded on several measures, and one was that I should explain the 67

Page 68 view page image

68 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. plan more fully to the whole school. Then I sent for Mary Lyman, Frances Strong, and Mrs. Gammage, having a private’interview with each alone, and have laid plans with them that will make all go smoothly tomorrow. Dec. I I. This morning all the teachers met their circles, exciting them to interest in their several duties, and the girls seemed much interested. Then all assembled in the Hall, and I read and explained our plan. I found my confidence growing so fast that I actually stood and looked in the eyes of all and “speechified” nearly half an hour, and you may ask Mrs. Gammage if I did not do well, considering who it was, while the school looked unutterable things in response. I told them to so manage as to keep you away another week. Now, dear sister, to use an expression of our good Dr. Hawes, “I wish just to drop this thought into your mind:” the girls are so earnest to give you more time to rest, that if you come back so soon they will think I sent a false report. You never had a company of more efficient, popular and judicious

Page 69 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. teachers, and your absence enables them to go forward with a confidence they would not feel in your presence. The union of feeling and action among teachers and scholars in this emergency will produce great good. We are fast becoming acquainted with all, and I think we shall do wonders. Do not think I give too favorable an account because of your anxiety. -Ieip from above will be given to us while you are away. Your affectionate H. E. B. P. S.-Last night we teachers all sat up till eleven o’clock finishing our Cherokee letters. We sent some to the principal ladies of New Haven by Martha Sherman, to put in the Postoffice there. Margaret Brown says the circular is making a great excitement in New York. The Hartford ladies have received theirs from several cities, we among the rest. There is great wonderment as to who composed the circular.

The girls come and tell us such marvelous stories about a circular for the Cherokees around in Hartford. They say public meetings and petitions are getting up in New York and other places, and here they are moving for the same. The excitement, I 69

Page 70 view page image

70 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. hope, is but just begun. So “great effects come from little causes.” Dec. I2, i829. DEAR SISTER-I suppose you have my yesterday’s letter. Yesterday evening the Circle of Regularity and all the teachersmet at Miss Munger’s, and we spent a very pleasant evening. Mrs.

Gammage told stories, “mirabile dictu,” and the girls were astonished to find she can laugh and talk. She is getting into the good graces of the Burr Street girls, as I am glad to see. There were other social gatherings among the girls, and affection and good feeling seem to increase. Your absence is doing me good, for I never before felt such confidence to go forward and act, and the other’teachers feel the same. Miss Brigham has the younger ones entirely under her control. Fanny Strong has the entire control of her circle, and I have of mine. Fanny’s piety, amiability, and uncommon knowledge of human nature are invaluable qualities to you. Even if Miss Grant should not be secured by an endowment from the citizens here, I think we can find means elsewhere. I feel willing to devote my whole life to this institu

Page 71 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. tion, as I never did before, and the increase of piety and devotedness in Fanny Strong has much encouraged me.

I shall speak in the Hall again Monday. I now feel as if I could do anything, even to standing up with a good face for an hour’s lecture, but if you come home I fear, to speak classically, thiat I shall “draw in my horns.” Mondary, D)ec. I4. I read your letter to the school this morning, with remarks of my own. I shall become quite an orator if you do not come home too soon. The school has never been more orderly than it is now, and I think all the young ladies, though some slowly, are realizing more than’ever before that they must not “live unto themselves.” As to our family, I have taken this course. I have interested Miss Griswold in one entry and Miss Southmayd in another, to meet their room-mates at nine in the evening, to read the Bible and for prayer. Miss Brigham will do the same with those in her entry, and thus most of the family will be’engaged at that hour. This influence will be felt in the family and extend to the school. I also have ar 71

Page 72 view page image

72 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. ranged to recommence the prayer-meeting of the members of the church, which was held last term. There are in our family four who wish to make a public profession of religion. Surely God has put great means of influence into our hands. The girls are all anxious to have you stay as long as you can. Sarah Watkinson has requested me to write her a note, as I have to some others. I love Sarah very much. With more efficiency of character than some of her companions she has less of that foolish pride. Oh that the Divine Teacher would rescue that class of minds from prejudice and false principle, and make them all that they might become that is noble and good! We must, in order -to influence them successfully, cherish constant kindness and hide our eyes from their faults. What a blessed world this would be were the principles of our religion fully carried out in practice! I sometimes am weary of the selfishness and false principles prevailing, and long for the better country. But I am willing to live on, for what are a few years to eternity! This life will soon be over, and you, dear sister, I trust will rest mi, d those we love, and

Page 73 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. go on in endless activity without anxiety or weariness. Postscript by one of the teachers. DEAR Miss BEECHER-I wish to say one word as to the prosperity of our Republic-I have not time or space for more. Since I have been in school I have never seen the young ladies so exactly what they should be as to-day. Witness the hand of yours affectionately, C. MUNGER. Dec. i 6. DEAR SISTER-This morning I delivered a long speech on “modes of exerting moral influence;” showing the ways in which an evil influence is unknowingly exerted and the ways-in which each and all can exert a good one. The right spirit is daily “increasing.” Miss Brigham says all her classes seem so anxious to do right and are so interested in their studies that she loves them better and better every day. The other teachers also say they never saw the classes form in more perfect order and go and return with so little noise. I feel as if we are holding the helm, and can turn the vessel the right way. The force of mora influence seems equal to that of 73

Page 74 view page image

74 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. authority, and even stronger. When the girls wish what is against my opinion they say, “Do, Miss Beecher, allow just this.” “l,4low you?” I say. “I have not the power; you can do so if you think best.” Now, they cannot ask me to give up my opinion and belief of right and wrong, and they are unwilling to act against it. Ere long they will find that under the dominion of conscience and a correct public sentiment they have rulers they cannot sway like teachers of flesh and blood. I think hereafter I can diminish your labor of speaking in the hall. I am now so well acquainted with the young ladies that I feel safe.

I can say, as did St. Paul, “I have confidence in you all.” I am planning to have the leading scholars take a more active part, so as to relieve us still more. If only the resources you already have are employed, you need not give up for want of Miss Grant. I am fitting some in my composition classes to teach, so that in a few weeks I can give up the larger part of my duties and help you elsewhere. A. T. improves rapidly, and will be another proof of our doctrine that the cultivation of imagination when it seems wanting is entirely

Page 75 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. practicable. Miss Lathrop, of our “Faculty,”

being interrogated on the subject, has decided to send her love, and Miss Hooper likewise. Miss Brigham chooses to do the same, witness the below.

P.S.-DEAR MISS BEECHER-YOU little know how happy we are, and we are so selfish we do not want you to return to share our happiness. However, we will permit you to come Friday. Ever your affectionate SUSAN BRIGHAM. The result of this republican organization was very favorable in greatly lessening my cares after my return. But my strength continued to fail, and I foresaw that my career there was coming to a close, and that this method could not be made permanent, being only fitted to that special emergency.

The amount of intellectual activity and enthusiasm that was wittnessed the two last years of my administration, both in teachers and pupils, exceeded anything I ever heard of; and in after life Mrs. Stowe wrote to me, “There never was such a school as that! We did not half know how good it was; what a pity we had to give it up!” 75

Page 76 view page image

76 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. To more fully appreciate what was accomplished and then lost, the character and subsequent history of the ladies of 6our “faculty” should be taken into account. Of these, Miss Mary Dutton, who previously had aided her father in fitting boys for college,‘was the first well-qualified teacher that I gained to superintend in Latin and Mathematics. Mrs. Stowe, who was devoted to the seminary, departed when I did, and with Miss Dutton and two of my first assistant teachers established at Cincinnati the Western Female Institute.

Afterwards Miss Dutton for several years was principal of the popular “Grove Seminary” in New Haven. Miss Frances Strong, who, with three of my assistant teachers, established in Alabama the Huntsville Female Seminary, after some six years was called to better places-first in New Orleans, then in Philadelphia, and finally became principal of the Hartford Seminary, where, as I did, she lost her health; but, worse than that, she also lost her life, a martyr to unhealthful and cruel exactions. Miss Julia Hawks (Mrs. Gardell) was called -to be principal of the seminary in Springfield, Mass., built expressly for her, and afterwards

Page 77 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. conducted the most popular seminary for young ladies in Philadelphia, where she lost her health, went abroad and died on her travels. Miss Lucy Ann Reed (Mrs. William C. Woodbridge) I made my associate principal, _ but she departed to private life, as did Miss Clarissa Brown (Mrs. Judge Parsons), my unequalled teacher in geography, and Miss C. Memger (Mrs. Washburn), my accom plished teacher of elocution. These ladies, and others less publicly known, were not so much my subordinate teachers as my wise counselors and sympathizing friends, to whose invention, discretion, and cooperation I greatly owed my success.

To these should be added the remarkable circle -of ladies who aided in the care of my pupils from abroad by receiving them as boarders, and who were nearly as valuable as teachers in many particulars. Of these, Mrs. Henry L. Ellsworth, daughter-in-law of our Chief-Justice and sister of Professor Good rich of Yale College, took charge of ten of my scholars. Mrs. Dr.

Cogswell, widow of the leading physician of the city and State, re ceived another portion. Mrs. Major Caldwell, wife of a gentleman of reduced fortune, once 77 I

Page 78 view page image

78 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. one of the wealthiest shipping merchants of New England, gave me and several pupils a home for some years, and her daughters were among my most reliable teachers. Mrs. William Watson was a lady of equal position and character, and two of her daughters were my teachers, while several pupils boarded with them. Several other ladies of excellent character received to their families and care my pupils from abroad. And here it is important to notice that the whole management of this institution was in the hands Cf ladies whose education was gained chiefly in the domestic circle and in the common school. There were, with perhaps one exception, none of them whose attainments in ancient languages and mathematics equaled what are to-day demanded of College freshmen. The trustees of the seminary were all among the highest business and professional men, but they left everything to the charge of the ladies except providing funds for the building and directing as to their management. This is important as a striking contrast to my afterexperiences. For it has ever been housekeepers, mothers, and school-teachers whp

Page 79 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. aided in planning and executing, while inexperienced business and professional men, acting on committees or as trustees, have been the chief obstacles to success. Not that they fail in earnest and self-denying efforts; but because it is women who are trained to educate children and the teachers of children, while men have a training chiefly for their own professions. The decline of the Hartford Seminary after I left it was the necessary result of want of endowment. My successor, though an able teacher, was a man who had a family to support, and could not use all the school income, as I had done, to retain the highest class of teachers, to whom the experience and high reputation they had gained with me brought the offer of superior situations. Had this seminary been endowed with only half the funds bestowed on our poorest colleges for young men, and the college plan of divided responsibilities thus been made permanent, most of my best teachers would have been retained, or, if removed at diverse intervals, their places would have been supplied by the highest class of teachers, as are college professorships. 79

Page 80 view page image

80 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. Before I relinquished this school, Hon.

James Birney (afterward the Abolition candidate for President of the United States) came to me to select a Principal for the Huntsville Female Seminary, Alabama, and, then I first proposed the trial of a faculty of coequal teachers, instead of a Principal with subordinates. This was adopted, and four of my teachers made the experiment for six years, with perfect success. But no endowments secured the needful permanency, and so one teacher left from ill health, and the others were called to more favorable positions. Since the failure of my attempt to perpetuate the Hartford Seminary on the college plan of endowed departments, a college for young men, in that same city, has gained means to support eight resident professors, while its endowments in buildings, land and other property, are valued at over half a million, and now they are seeking as much more. In the same city is a Congregational Theological Seminary, never numbering over thirty scholars, yet, having large and fine buildings in the most expensive quarter, with endowments to support five professors, a large part given by women. Only thirty miles from this,

Page 81 view page image

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE-AN EPISODE. in New Haven, is another Congregational Theological Seminary, with endowments to support five professors, and the only claim for the existence of two of the same denomination in the same State is that they differ in a theological theory as to Adam’s fall, and its effect. Then, only fifteen miles from Hartford may be found another Theological Seminary and a College, both well endowed, though only fifteen miles further south is Yale College, richly endowed. 81

Page 82 view page image

CHAPTER VII. WESTERN FEMALE INSTITUTE. HEN I removed to Cincinnati my health was such that it was hazardous for me to attempt any enterprise demanding continuous labor or responsibility. But I was immediately solicited to establish a school there of a higher order than any then existing. I finally consented to provide superior teachers for a school, and to do myself all I safely could to sustain it. I asked for $50o to buy furniture and apparatus, and it was readily furnished. I secured four of my former teachers and pupils, and organized the school on the college plan of coequal teachers. Soon there were more scholars than our rooms would accommodate. I then rented a fine building, central, retired, elevated, and surrounded with trees, and it was offered for sale on very low terms. Just at this time my friend, the Rev. Mr. Gallaudet, visited us, and

Page 83 view page image

WESTERN FEMALE INSTITUTE. consented to bring before the citizens the plan of purchasing this building for a permanent institution for educating the daughters of the city. A committee was formed to raise funds to buy the place. But there was no man to take the lead, and the committee wvere absorbed in their own affairs. Meantime, the question was asked, “Suppose the funds are secured, have you health and strength to take charge of the financial management.” I could only answer in the negative. When asked, Who will do it? I could point to no one qualified who could be obtained. I tried to engage Mr. Gallaudet, but there were no funds for his support, and neither he or any other man competent for the enterprise would relinquish a fine position at such a hazard. The means could not be furnished without the proper man, and the proper man could not be obtained without the means. When I had secured Mrs. Stowe, Miss Mary Dutton, and two others of my best teachers, to conduct the school on the college plan, they gave general satisfaction. I then attempted to secure an endowment from a large fund given by a Mr. Hughes for general education. 83

Page 84 view page image

84 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. The Trustees agreed to bestow it on condition that the citizens would provide a suitable building. I then started a subscription, headed by two gentlemen with a thousand dollars each, and several other ger,tlemen promised five hundred dollars each” But I had not;trength to complete the subscription; the financial crash of i837 came, the fine building we rented was sold to the Catholics for a nunnery, no other suitable one could be had, and so another of the finest schools I ever knew came to an end for want of endowments, such as then abounded on every side for young men. At this institution in Cincinnati I invented a course of calisthenic exercises, accompanied by music, which was an improvement on the one I adopted at Hartford. The aim was to secure all the advantages supposed to be gained in dancing-schools, with additional advantages for securing graceful movements to the sound of music. These exercises were extensively adopted in schools, both East and West, but finally passed away. One reason was that they demanded a piano or some other instrument, and a large room without furni ture; another was the want of appreciation of

Page 85 view page image

WESTERN FEMALE INSTITUTE. physical exercise, and of the importance of training young girls to simple gracefulness of movement and person. To meet the first difficulty I arranged a system of exercises which could be used in a school-room without Jemoving desks and benches, either to be performed with or without music, and this method is found in my work on Physiology and Calisthenics, published by the Harpers, which has been extensively adopted. Dr. Dio Lewis’ system of gymnastics includes many of my methods, with additions which seem objectionable in these respects: they are so vigorous and ungraceful as to be more suitable for boys than for young ladies. They also demand a large room, an instrument, and a dress for the purpose. They also demand an attention to the state of health which has sometimes been so affeceed by them that not unfrequently they have done more harm than good, and thus become unpopular with parents. When physical education takes the proper place in our schools, young girls will be trained in the class-rooms to move head, hands and arms gracefully; to sit, to stand, and to walk properly, and to pursue calisthenic exercises 85

Page 86 view page image

86 EDITCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. for physical development as a regular school duty as much as their studies. And these exercises, set to music, will be sought as the most agreeable of school duties. During the five years in which the Western Female Institute was sustained by my former teachers, I employed my pen in preparing my works on Domestic Lconomy, one as a textbook for schools for young women, and the other as a Receipt Book for all kinds of cooking and other family matters. The one to be used as a textbook was adopted as a part of the Massachusetts School Library. It also was introduced into various schools, both at the East and the West.

Mr. George B. Emerson, the most popular and successful teacher of young ladies in Boston, used it in his classes, and advocated its general adoption in other schools. It was part of my plan to make the extensive sale of this work a source of income for my educational plan, and in some measure this was accomplished, as will appear in the following pages. Mr.

Emerson wrote thus: “It may be objected that such things cannot be taught by books. Why not? Why may not the structure of the human body, and the laws of health deduced

Page 87 view page image

WESTERN FEMALE INSTITUTE. therefrom, be as well taught as the laws of natural philosophy? Why are not the application of these laws to the management of infants and young children as important to a woman as the application of the rules of arithmetic to the extraction of the cube root?

Why may not the properties of the atmosphere be explained, in reference to the proper ventilation of rooms, or exercise in the open air, as properly as to the burning of steel or sodium? Why is not the human skeleton as curious and interesting as the air-pump; and the action of the brain, as the action of a steam-engine? Why may not the healthiness of different kinds of food and drink, the proper modes of cooking, and the rules in reference to the modes and times of taking them, be discussed as properly as rales of grammar, or facts in history? Are not the principles that should regulate clothing, the rules of cleanliness, the advantages of early rising and domestic exercise, as readily communicated as the principles of mineralogy, or rules of syntax? Are not the rules of Jesus Christ, applied to refine domestic manners and preserve a good eminper, as important as the abstract principles of ethics, as taught by Paley, Wayland, or Jouffroy? May not the advantages of neatness, system, and order, be as well illustrated in showing how they contribute to the happiness of a family, as by showing how they add beauty to a copy-book, or a portfolio of drawings? Would not a teacher be as well employed in teaching the rules of economy, in regard to time and expenses, or in regard to dispensing charity, as in teaching double or single entry in book-keeping? Are not the6 principles that should guide in constructing a house, and in warming and ventilating it properly, as important to young girls 87 I I

Page 88 view page image

88 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. as the principles of the Athenian Commonwealth, or the rules of Roman tactics? Is it not as important that children should be taught the dangers to the mental faculties when over-excited, on the one hand, or left unoccupied on the other, as to teach them the conflicting theories of political economy, or the speculations of metaphysicians? For ourselves,:‘we have always found children, especially girls, peculiarly ready to listen to what they saw would prepare them for future duties. The truth that education would be a prepara tion for actual, real life has the greatest force with children.

The constantly-recurring inquiry,’ What will be the use of this study?’ is always satisfied by showing that it will prepare for any duty, relation, or office which, in the natural course of things, will be likely to come.

“We think this book extremely well suited to be used as textbook in schools for young ladies, and many chapters are well adapted for a reading book for children of both sexes.” To this the writer would add the testimony of a lady who has used this work with several classes of young girls and young ladies. She remarked that she had never known a schoolbook that awakened more interest, and that some young girls would learn a lesson in this when they would study nothing else. She remarked, also, that when reciting the chapter on the construction of houses, they became greatly interested in inventing plans of their

Page 89 view page image

WESTERN FEMALE INSTITUTE. own, which gave an opportunity to the teacher to point out difficulties and defects. Had this part of domestic economy been taught in schools, our land would not be so defaced with awkward, mishapen, inconvenient, and, at the same time, needlessly expensive houses. Nor would there be such waste of health and money in the selection of poor cook-stoves and furnaces, or the mismanagement of good ones.

Although the writer was trained to the care of children, and to perform all branches of domestic duty, by somie of the best of housekeepers, much in those pages was offered, not only as the result of her own experience, but as what had obtained the approbation of some of the most judicious mothers and housekeepers in the nation. The articles on Physiology and Hygiene, and those on Horticulture, were derived from standard works on these subjects, and are sanctioned by the highest authorities. 89

Page 90 view page image

CHAPTER VIII. MISS GRANT AND Miss LYON. URING several years that followed removal to Cincinnati, my health was chiefly sustained by traveling; so that I made yearly visits to New England, and also visited friends and former pupils in the Western States. Being extensively known at the West as an educator, I was constantly consulted for a supply of teachers. I was again and again told -of extensive sections demanding many teachers. For example: a Committee of the Synod of Indiana wrote me that they would find schools for more than twenty women teachers if I would provide suitable ones. A reliable gentleman told me he would be responsible for good schools and good salaries for at least fifteen teachers, if I would select the proper persons.’ At the same time I was constantly receiving letters from teachers in New England, asking

Page 91 view page image

MISS GRANT AND MISS LYON. help in finding schools. I had projected some agency that would bring teachers to Cincinnati, where they could be trained for their difficult duties, so that those seeking teachers would come to this establishment, and the parties thus negotiate face to face. I had this as one part of my plan in establishing the Western Female Institute, but having no adequate helper, and being unable to conduct the effort alone, it was sorrowfully relinquished. During this period I made a tour in New England, and at the conclusion met a number of gentlemen of Boston to whom I submitted these and other facts; and I especially commended to their notice the character and labors of Miss Grant and Miss Lyon, who were at that time commencing efforts to endow a seminary for women. These ladies were pupils of Rev. Joseph Emmerson, who instilled the highest ideal of woman’s position and ministry. He maintained that, as the chief educator of our race, the world’s education is to be achieved mainly by the instrumentality of highly cultivated women animated by the self-sacrificing spirit of Jesus Christ. 91

Page 92 view page image

92 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. Thus influenced by their teacher, these two ladies in after years commenced the effort which resulted in the establishment of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. At this time neither in Europe or this country had there been any provision madel~or the higher intellectual training of women of the medium workingclasses. It was either the wealthy or the degraded poor who engaged all educational efforts. But it was believed by these ladies that the highest welfare of society could never be attained until women of the medium classes were highly educated, both intellectually and spiritually. With this object in view, Miss Lyon relinquished to Miss Grant the sole charge of the Ipswich Seminary, which they had shared together, and devoted herself to raising funds for an institution on a novel plan, which should be made permanent by endowments. Miss Grant succeeded in raising the first thousand dollars for this enterprise among the ladies of Ipswich and her pupils, and thus, like myself, these pioneers were upheld and encouraged in their first attempt by the approval and contributions of sensible, practical and benevolent women.

Page 93 view page image

MISS GRANT AND MISS LYON. The leading features of this plan were to gain perpetuity by endowments for an institution which should secure as high intellectual training for the daughters as for the sons of a family, and, in addition to that, secure the high Christian culture which would equally fit them for noble wives and mothers among the laboring classes, or for teachers and missionaries in neglected lands. It was claimed that the church of Christ was bound as a solemn duty to provide such institutions for its daughters. The next and most peculiar feature was, conducting the family work without servants, as a method which would draw pupils, not from the wealthy class, but from the classes in which domestic labor had well developed both body and mind. Miss Lyon ever maintained that this measure was not intended to teach housekeeping and other domestic duties, but to honor labor, to secure family unity, kindliness and energy. She playfully remarked that this feature served as a sieve to exclude the indolent, fastidious and delicate, and retain the finest wheat. Another feature aimed at by her was such economy in expenditures as would enable energetic women with limited means to gain 98

Page 94 view page image

94 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. a liberal education at small expense. In order to do this she never would receive more than two hundred a year for her salary, and of this a large part was devoted to the institution she founded. In her first efforts she was regarded like myself, as “visionary and impractical.” Even sensible men and women opposed, some ridiculed, and few sympathized. It was in the most trying’,and discouraging part of this enterprise that’ I made a tour, during which I obtained these particulars: - At Concord, N. I-I., Mr. Stone, principal of a school there, told me that there were many intelligent, pious women in that vicinity anxious for education to become teachers, but restricted by limited means, and, after giving all he could, he took their hard-earned pittance almost with tears.

Yet if fitted to be teachers, he knew not how they could get schools. Miss Hesseltine, principal of a large school at New Hampton, N. H., told me she had to repress the enthusiasm of her pupils in seeking useful employment away from home, for it was not right for them to start off alone to seek it; and yet, if there was any way to pro

Page 95 view page image

MISS GRANT AND MISS LYON. vide schools, she could every year furnish from fifty to one hundred enterprising, pious, and well-educated teachers.

President Lord, of Dartmouth College, N. H., told me that he felt very strongly the importance of such an organization as I was seeking, and was confident that many excellent women in that vicinity who were unemployed would thankfully engage in such service. At Burlington, Vt., the college faculty and the principal of the female seminary expressed the same opinion. At Middlebury, Vt., the faculty of the college and the principal of the female seminary furnished me very interesting facts to illustrate the same opinion. At Castleton, Vt., Mr. Clark, principal of the female academy told me he had long felt the need of some agency to employ female talent and piety, and had offered to undertake finding places for teachers at the West if only the needful funds were provided. Miss Fiske, of Keene, N. H., for thirty-five years a teacher, who had trained more than three thousand pupils, enthusiastically coincided with my views as the only mode of sav 95

Page 96 view page image

EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. ing our country from ignorance and consequent ruin. At Northampton, Mass., Rev. Mr. Todd expressed the same views. He was then engaged with Miss Lyon in efforts,to raise funds for Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, which aimed to educate women teachers and missionaries, and said that in two years Northampton alone could furnish fifty pious and well-educated women if means were afforded. He lamented that the effort to raise funds for Mt. Holyoke Seminary languished, because all engaged in it were too much interested in business or so disqualified that he feared an entire failure. At Amherst, Mass., President Humphrey expressed the same views as to the need of such efforts, and his fears that the Mt. Holyoke plan would fail for want of a man having the ability and willingness to carry it forward. He lamented that while there were plenty of men earnest in creating or sustaining institutions for men, even more than are needed, Miss. Lyon, that noble, self-denying, and indefatigable woman, was in danger of losing health and usefulness for want of deserved sympathy and aid. 96

Page 97 view page image

MISS GRANT AND MISS LYON. In this extensive tour I obtained the names and high recommendation of over one hundred women who would gladly become missionary teachers. At the same time I found a rising interest to furnish means to educate and employ women teachers. Or-” clergyman’s wife told me that several societies of young ladies were formed for this purpose, and their funds were lying idle for want of suitable opportunity to use them.

When I made the vain effort to have teachers to come from the East to Cincinnati, to be trained there, as the place for supplying those at the West who were seeking teachers, I wrote to Miss Lyon, who at that time had succeeded in establishing the Mt. Holyoke Seminary. The following was her reply: “MY DEAR FRIEND: “I have not forgotten you or your cause. I have received your circular, and now, with little time at command, I send in a few inquiries and suggestions. “This object is a very great one and I hope it will accomplish for our country even more than any one could expect. Of the need of such an effort no one can doubt, and there are a great many women who have the heart to go and labor and suffer in the cause and receive but little earthly reward. But it is something to find them, and when found, still more to complete all needed negotiations. 97

Page 98 view page image

98 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. “But my hope is not in women considerably advanced in age, who expect to remain unmarried; it is in young ladies scarcely out of their teens, whose souls are burning for some channel into which they can pour their benevolence, and who will teach two, three, or four years and then marry and become firm pillars to hold up their successors. If we could find teachers who, unmarried, would devote twenty or thirty years to this work, we would not gain as much as by such a circulating system. “As to the other sex, I regard them in a different light. They need not (like women teachers) leave their vocation when they marry, in order’to guide the house’ and nurture their children. And so God has given them less versatility and less power to enter successfully and all at once into what they undertake as their life work. In this view of the case there is a difficulty as to my immediate success in furnishing teachers for your enterprize. For young ladles must not only be willng to go, but must also gain the approbation of father, mother, or, perhaps, brother or sister, or sister’s husband. “As the enterprise now is, it will be difficult to satisfy very careful friends. Just write to me of a particular place by name and that a teacher can have proper assurance of her paying expenses and a salary of say only $IOO, and I have little doubt that I can send you a good teacher with full consent of friends as soon as I can find a safe escort. “But if I can only say I wish to send a teacher to Miss Beecher to spend a few weeks at Cincinnati in preparing for an unknown field with an unknown sal

Page 99 view page image

MISS GRANT AND MISS LYON. ary, and to be under obligation to an unknown donor, the case is different. “You will not understand that I disapprove your mode of commencing your work. After your enterprise has made farther advance I hope to do more than I can do now. You will excuse me if my suggestion are borrowed from my own experience the last ten years. Having had many obstacles thrown in my own way, I anticipate them for others, and having been blessed with more success than I ever hoped, I am prepared to expect success for others as I do for you.” These views of Miss Lyon are rendered specially interesting and valuable in reference to the narrative which follows. 99 ….. e X ~.,,

Page 100 view page image

CHAPTER IX. GOVERNOR SLADE. URING the period embraced in the pre ceding narrative, I was invited to furnish an article to be read at the Annual Meeting of the National Lyceum. I accordingly sent an address in which I plead the causes of the two million children of our country without teachers, anid of the multitudes of educated Christian women vainly seeking for schools. The President of the Lyceum wrote me that the reading of it drew tears from many eyes, and that it was read again to a meeting of New York ladies invited for the purpose, who requested its publication.

But no other results appealed to follow. I then began an attempt to organize women of all religious denominations, to prosecute the preparations and employment of educated Christian women, and their transfer from the East to act as teachers in the destitute sections of the West and South.

Page 101 view page image

GOVERNOR SLADE. At this time the agitation about woman’s rights and wrongs was exciting public notice, and while I deeply sympathized in the effort to remedy the many disabilities and sufferings of my sex, it seemed to me the most speedy and effective remedy would be to train woman for her true profession as educator and chief minister of the family state, and to secure to her the honor and pecuniary reward which men gain in their professions. To organize women for this end would escape much of the prejudice and opposition awakened by those who were attempting to introduce women into men’s professions, and would be approved by the most conservative and fastidious, if conducted with discretion and propriety.

From the commencement of my-educational efforts, it was my practice always to seek the counsel of intelligent housekeepers, mothers and school-tea }ers, and I never have adopted any important plans or measures till I had secured the approval of women of high culture who had gained practical wisdom in performing such duties. Therefore my first measure was to consult ladies of influence and good sense in the chief Protestant sects both at the East and 101

Page 102 view page image

102 FDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. West, and after gaining a unanimous approval of what I was attempting, I organized a committee of ladies in Cincinnati to cooperate. Then I addressed letters of inquiry to gentlemen of influence and highs position in our more destitute States, asking their counsel as to measures. At the same time, at my request, Professor Stowe, my brother-in-law, organized a committee of gentlemen from several religious denominations in Cincinnati to cooperate with the ladies, and the follow, ing are extracts from several replies to my letters: From HON.

THOS. BURROWS, former Secretary of Stale in Pennsylvania. “The necessities, the crying necessities for the cause you plead are far before temperance reform, or colleges, or foreign missions. A man who, being fit, should de. vote himself to it, would confer a greater benefit on human nature than he could by any other use of his time. If my gifts’and domestic relations permitted, I would devote myself to a mission for raising up teacher’ Seminaries. Until this preliminary is accomplished, money, effort, and legislation will be, as hitherto they have been, merely thrown away. This State (Pennsyl vania) has expended five million for common schools, and at the end of ten years, I -see but little improve ment. If funds could be obtained to establish a superior teachers’

institution as a model, it 4ould set the matter ahead in a few years.

Beyond a doubt the

Page 103 view page image

GOVERNOR SLADE. plan ought to include the preparation of female teachers.”

From DR. STURTEVANT, President of Illinois College. “Some organization to secure popular education would do great good in this State, by collecting statistics and calling attention to our wants, and by supporting, at least in part, model schools to show by example what good schools are, and by influencing our legislature in reference to our school fund. If something is not done this fund of nearly two millions will practically be lost.”

From REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER of Indianapols, Indiana. “Much could be done for Indiana and much ought to be done speedily, for it is more densely populated than Ohio or Illinois; it has been grievously neglected and our school fund of nearly two million is in such neglect as threatens its entire loss. An agent should be supported to lecture in every country town to protect our school fund from depredations.” From HON. DR. CORNETT, member of the Senate of Indiana. “In Indiana we are in deplorable want of good teachers for common schools. If our people could be educated by the right sort of teachers there would be little need of temperance lectures and similar temporary efforts, for our children would enter life fortifiedt against vice. I have been on the Senate’s Committee on Education and have had great difficulty in sustaining the integrity of our school fund.” 103 f

Page 104 view page image

104 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. From JUDGE LANE, of Ohio. “I believe our legislature, if left to itself, would let the common schools perish. I believe an association to influence it to necessary measures is indispensable, and also an agent to give intensity to such an association.

A man for this work would require a rare combination of qualities.” From a Lawyer of Cincinnati. “Our State would furnish work for a dozen laborers for this cause instead of one. A man devoted to this cause would be welcomed as an angel of light by all classes and sects. I should hail the commencement of such an effort as you are attempting, as the dawning of a new light upon the West.” The views thus expressed were confirmed by all I consulted, and nothing seemed wanting but to find the right sort of man and engage his services. But here was an embarrassing dilemma. In order to obtain such a man a salary must be provided for his support, and in order to raise the salary the right man must be secured. Which horn of the dilemma was to be chosen it was difficult to decide, and so I concluded to take both; that is to find the right man who would engage to start without any funds pledged for his support, and at the same time to raise funds to support an agent, before a suitable one had been engaged. t

Page 105 view page image

GOVERNOR SLADE. My efforts to obtain the right person, when no salary could be secured, were continued for more than a year. I traveled, wrote, talked, argued, and persuaded, in various directions, and when foiled in a sixth application, and was commencing the seventh, I bethought me that worse than the distress of Israel’s maidens had befallen me, for it was written, “In that day seven women shall take hold of one man” for help, but, now, one woman was obliged to pursue seven! At this period I prepared a volume entitled “American Women, Will You Save Your Country? ” It came out anonymously, that it might not appear as from a mere individual. It was extensively circulated by the Harpers, who published it, and was sent, with a circular from the committee of ladies and gentlemen I had secured, to various influential ladies of the chief Protestant denominations, East and West. Soon contributions began to come to me. By this means, also, was formed the Boston Ladies’ Society for Promoting Education at the West, which by sending excellent teachers did a noble work for several years. It soon was apparent that no gentleman possessing the requisite character could be 105

Page 106 view page image

106 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. obtained until a proper salary was pledged.

To gain this I made a tour to many of our large cities with my young brother Thomas, who visited clergymen of the chief denominations, and by their aid secured large meetings of ladies, to whom he delivered the address I had prepared. As the result, such assurances were given as seemed to insure a proper salary to a suitable agent as soon as he could be found. Meantime, a copy of my book and circular reached Governor Slade of Vermont, and he, through a friend, expressed a wish to aid in some way in such an enterprise. I immediately sent the following letter, and, at my request, both my father and Professor Stowe addressed him letters. WALNUT

HILLS, _VOV. I4, 1845. To His EXCELLENCY Gov. SLADE: ANy Dear Sir,-Prof.

Stowe has learned from gentlemen in Vermont that you may perhaps be induced to take the direction of the enterprise commenced by American women to promote popular education. My father will address you on the subject, and I beg leave also to present some views of the objects sought by the leaders who are most interested in,the enterprise. In its most comprehensive form this is an effort to place American Women in that true position designed by God, and relieve them from the miseries consequent

Page 107 view page image

GOVERNOR SLADE. on their present false position. Our Creator designed woman to be the chief educator of our race and the prime minister of our family state, and our aim is to train her for this holy calling and give her every possible advantage for the performance of its many and difficult duties. But, while this is our leading view, it includes several distinct departments, several of which are more readily comprehended than the more general object, and so we take one at a t’nie, selecting such as the popular mind can most readily be led to appreciate. Our first measure presented to the public is the promotion of popular education as the only mode of saving our nation from ruin. This interests all patriots, and philanthropists of every class. To those who regard all enterprises in the religious aspect, it is offered as a missionary effort to save not only from temporal evils but from perils of the future life. To those who are laboring to secure woman’s rights and remedy her wrongs, it is offered as the shortest, surest, and safest method. There are several considerations that may encourage you in an attempt to take the lead in this important movement. The first is that it originated and so far has been conducted by women of more than ordinary claims to respect. The prime movers are not women who are ambitious of notoriety or easily excited by visionary schemes, nor women of unbalanced mind easily attracted to trifling pursuits, nor ambitious women stimulated by the desire of power and influence. On the contrary, they are women of culture, reflection, and comprehensive views. Some are women of talent for authorship, who will employ the pen for this cause. Some are women of wealth, ready to spend time and 107 I

Page 108 view page image

EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. money for this cause. Some are women of high position, whose character and connections give them access to the fountains of power. Finally, they are selected from all sects and all sections of our nation. Such are the women who quietly are organizing to promote an enterprise that commends itself to all parties and sections and to all good men of every name.* I would next indicate reasons for encouragement in the measures to be employed by those ladies most active in this cause. One most prominent is the wide circulation of two volumes-one, entitled “American Women, will you serve your Country?” which aims to interest all philanthropists and christians in promoting popular education. The other is a work embracing all departments of Domestic Economy, written for the express purpose of exciting a healthful esprit de corps among women, and promoting a respect for woman’s distinctive duties.

It aims to train young ladies, at school, with right views of their future domestic duties and to aid in preparing them to discharge them wisely and faithfully. At the same time it is hoped that an extensive sale of these works will secure funds to support agents and measures for accomplishing the great enterprize in hand. . We have attempted to form affiliated associations to carry out the various details that may be devised, and in this effort we have aimed to interest women of wealth and influence in different religious denominations, that it may become fashionable to engage in this cause, and so, also, that sectarian antagonisms shall not interfere. Already three ladies of wealth and position, one in the Baptist and two in the Congregationalist denomination, have expressed to me their willingness 108

Page 109 view page image

GOVERNOR SLADE. to devote their time and property to this as their leading object of benevolence. I know of several others who are ready, in other religious denominations. to take the same course. All that is now wanting is a competent leader. For such a position we seek a civilian rather than a clergyman, in order to escape sectarian jealousy, a man also of liberal views, with energy, enterprize and perseverance. Such, we are told, is the gentleman I am addressing, and with devout thankfulness to the Author of all wise counsels, we learn that he has inclined your heart to engage in this work, which time will show to be of unsurpassed magnitude. Therefore, in behalf of the noble ladies who are united with me, in behalf of thousands of our suffering sex, and behalf of millions of neglected children in whose cause we are engaged, we ask you to grant us the strength of your name, station and character, and the success that will attend your counsels, influence and labors. Permit us to say that should you comply with our request, in addition to all other benefactions, it will be equal in money value to a check for the sum needful for your future salary. Very respectfully your friend, CATHARINE E. BEECHER, From PROF. STOWE. WALNUT HILLS, Dec. r5, I846. To Gov. SLADE: Dear Sir,-Miss Beecher’s correspondence has presented some of our objects and plans. We are engaged 109

Page 110 view page image

110 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. in the chimerical, always unrewarded, never appreciated, and forever unsuccessful work of trying to get a few useful ideas on education into people’s heads, so that they may treat themselves decently and make their children good for something, This is a work which requires talent, devotedness, patience, and a vast amount of head-work, all for the good of others and without any prospect of reward except in the Kingdom of Heaven. Now as this Kingdom of Heaven has no cotton or sugar plantations to offer, and does not speculate in pork or flour, this kind of stock is considered a bad investment; so that Texas scrip and government bonds are greatly preferred to it. But there are at least a few minds not money-blind who have glimpses of the truly good and great, and who are willing to labor for the elevation of their fellow men without expectation of honor or wealth, simply because their heavenly sympathies lead that way. To such the educational wants of our country present a most interesting field. But the kind of work needed cannot be done by an ordinary, common-place man. He who undertakes it should be capable of succeeding in any business and worthy of any office in the gift of the people, and one also who will have to sacrifice a great deal for a good cause. No other man can do the work needed. Horace Mann has set a noble example~ and will not fail to have his reward. But if he in the one State of Massachusetts earned the reward of one city, the man who toils successfully for the great and growing West will have the ” ten talents,”

and be rewarded with “ten cities.” As to the precise duties you would be called to perform, we are unable to give definite information.

Page 111 view page image

GOVERNOR SLADE. Among the most patriotic and intelligent of our country there is a deep and increasing sense of danger and of our duty as to general education and an earnest wish that something should be done speedily. This interest existing in multitudes of minds all over the nation only awaits the formation of some nucleus around which to gather and develop, and we propose that as our official organ you present that nucleus. We have commenced our efforts by aiding the movement now commencing to aid benevolent women in obtaining schools in the more destitute portions of our nation, and this will constitute not the least important and interesting department of your labor. As to pecuniary support, you can be assured of a decent living and nothing more. But Jesus Christ says “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of that which he possesseth.” Should you, after suitable time for consultation, decide to comply with our wishes, we pledge you our counsels, our influence, our sympathy, and our prayers. In behalf of the Central Committee for promoting National Education, CALVIN E. STOWE. In the reply to these letters, Gov. Slade at first declined the proposal, but in such a way as not to discourage. A few months after, he wrote to me accepting the agency. From these two letters I extract the following: “If I know my own heart, I want to do good and be directed into the largest field of usefulness which I am capable of occupying; but in all seriousness I doubt ill

Page 112 view page image

112 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. my fitness for the agency in question. My want of experience in matters of this sort is the leading; though not the only, defect. There are other difficulties of whieh I cannot now write, which prevent my giving an affirmative answer, and whether these can be removed time will determine. As matters now stand, you must make no dependence on me for this agency.” In the second letter, a few months after the above, he wrote as follows: “MY DEAR MISS BEECHER-I suppose my letter to Prof. Stowe, indicating my acceptance of the agency has reached you. I am deeply impressed with the conviction that I shall disappoint the expectations of the friends of this enterprize. “It is a great misfortune for a man to be overrated in advance of an undertaking. But I have put my hand to the plough and shall not look back. My motto shall be’onward and upward,’ and my dependence the strength of Him who’ giveth power to the faint.’ “Very respectfully and truly yours, “WILLIAM SLADE.” Thus, after so much time and effort, the desired organization of cultivated and practical women in the chief protestant denominations was effected; committees of influential gentlemen were secured to cooperate; and an agent of high character and’ position obtained. But it was at the expense of great nervous prostration on my own part, which was in

Page 113 view page image

GOVERNOR SLADE. some measure remedied by several months’ residence at the first water-cure established in this country, under Dr. Wefselhoeft, a highly educated German physician 113 or

Page 114 view page image

C,HAPTER X.. BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. T the close of Gov.

Slade’s term of office in Vermont, we met at Hartford, where he delivered his first address to a large audience. This awakened a great interest in the cause he was to conduct. On consulting with him, I found he was willing to attempt nothing, but to transfer teachers already prepared, and so I did not urge a prominent feature of my plan, which was to raise up schools of a high order in the newer States, which should train teachers in those States when the supply from abroad had ceased. Knowing more than most of those consulted by Gov. Slade of the difficulties to be encountered, I proposed that before the teach ers were sent out they should meet in some place for a month to hear lectures, and visit classes in some normal school. To all I proposed he gave a most kind and courteous assent, and during all of our personal inter

Page 115 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 115 course and correspondence nothing but kind attention to my views and wishes was manifested; and whenever he differed from me as to the expediency of any matter, I did not urge it.

The points whereon we agreed were, that the teachers should spend a month under my care; that he should travel and lecture in the chief cities of the West, and organize voluntary committees to aid in providing schools for our teachers; that there should be no denominational differences, and that as far as practicable teachers should be drawn from all denominations called Evangelical. I endeavored to induce the Boston Ladies’ Society to join with us, but they had decided not to collect and prepare their teachers, but trust to correspondence alone, and to confine their society and teachers to the Congregational order. After some time they were convinced that our method was both more economical and more successful, and then they united their organization with Gov. Slade’s. The points where Gov. Slade dissented from my views and wishes were these: I knew that every man and woman of benevolence at the West had twice as much demanded of them

Page 116 view page image

116 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. as was possible to accomplish; that voluntary committees could not do all that was needful in finding schools and taking care of teachers; and that a paid agent was needed to take care of the teachers on their journey, as they all went in one common company, and also to attend to their location and incidental exigencies. I also held that there ought to be funds ready for their relief in cases of accidents or illness. But when I found that Gov. Slade was sure that his voluntary committees would do all that was needed in these respects, I did not urge my wishes nor dispute his judgment. Especially I did not urge the main features of what I was seeking, as the completion of the plan, i. e.

the establishment of institutions for the higher education of women in central points at the West, sustained by endowments; and the college method of organization, which I deemed so necessary to save the health of the highest class of teachers, and which I had by trial found so successful. During my residence at Brattleboro, I issued circulars to clergymen of the larger Protestant denominations, seeking their aid in obtaining women of culture, good sense,

Page 117 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 117 and piety, to act as educators in a missionary field. By this meth6d I obtained the names of over three hundred ladies highly recommended. The first measure of Gov. Slade was to accompany me to visit the cities where my brother and myself had interested ladies in our effort, and by whose influence a large part of his necessary salary was secured-thus solving the second of my two main difficulties. Then he went to the Western cities to lecture and form committees to aid in finding schools and taking care of our teachers.

Encouraged by the interest manifested, he desired me to select at least one hundred teachers from the three hundred candidates. But when I found he had ceased his connection with the committee organized by Prof. Stowe at Cincinnati, and had organized at Cleveland the Board of _Vational Popular Educatioin, with a constitution which did not provide for an agent to assist teachers, nor funds for their distressing emergencies, fearing lest the provision of places and pecuniary resource might not suffice, I selected only thirty-five, and by the aid of Rev. Mr. James, in Albany, obtained for them gratuitous

Page 118 view page image

1i8 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. board for a month, and access to the normal school with lectures, and other advantages, in addition to my instructions. This class was sent on without any agent to take care of them on their journey, owing to the fact that in several cases the families who”had received teachers for a month only were in circumstances to require their departure, while Gov. Slade had misunderstood the time when he was to escort them. But our good friend, Mr. James, borrowed the money needed, and the class departed without an escort. A second class was collected, and trained under my supervision at Hartford, where the ladies of that city provided gratuitous board, and then, according to my desire, undertook the labor and care for all the succeeding classes, which I relinquished, hoping my responsibilities were thus ended. But the evils I had foreseen came to pass. The committee had not found places enough for the first class nor the second, and those in trouble all wrote for help to me. The narrative which follows is designed to illustrate these particulars That practical housekeepers, mothers, and school-teachers are better qualified to devise and conduct

Page 119 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 119 methods of education than men of business and professional men, who usually are employed for this service; that there is great want of economy in past methods for the highest education of both men and women; that the greatest impediments to improvement in education are sectarian divisions, preventing union in newer settlements, and multiplying needless colleges and professional schools for men; and, finally, that the most available remedy is for American women to organize, without respect to religious or political divisions, to secure the proper education of the women and children of this nation, as the chief ground of hope for its prosperity and safety. As one method of illustrating these principles some extracts are inserted from the letters which were addressed to me by the teachers I had aided to -prepare and locate. But, as only a small selection can be given, I will state that soon after the d &parture of the first class, numbering thirty-three, I learned that one of the teachers had lost her trunk by the carelessness of others; another was detained on the road among strangers by protracted illness.; another was

Page 120 view page image

120 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. taken so severely ill, soon after her arrival, as to be obliged to give up teaching; another wrote that the people were too ignorant and poor to support her school; another that she was so destitute of the comforts of life as to endanger health, and another that sectarian feuds had raised an opposition school which cut off much of her humble income. Soon after the location of the second class, numbering thirty-four, one wrote to me that her promised schools were not to be found; another that a teacher of another religious sect had supplanted her; another that she had broken a leg, involving confinement for months; another that her school was nearly broken up by a contest about admitting colored children; another that she was so destitute of ordinary comforts that it affected her health, and, lastly, another wrote that a *teacher who could teach more branches for a less price was preferred only on account of cheapness. At this time Gov. Slade had formed a new organization at Cleveland, Ohio, named the Board of National Popular Education, its managers being men of business or profeso

Page 121 view page image

BOARD OCF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 121 sional men, and the Constitution adopted by them did not allow any funds to aid teachers after location. At the same time he was on an extensive tour through the East and West to raise funds and promote interest in popular education, and, in these respects, he was very successful. But the whole responsibility of aiding those sufferers whom I had brought into such painful circumstances rested on me. I immediately took the following letters and others similar to them, and read them to meetings of ladies in several cities, who promptly gave me the needful funds, to be used by me at my own discretion. The first is from a young lady of the Episcopal Church: “I arrived here the 17th of January, and opened school in a small log house. I now have forty-five pupils, onehalf of whom are boys, and some of them grown up.

They all seem anxious to please me, and I find no difficulty in-governing them. “The inhabitants here are chiefly from North Carolina, Tennessee, and Germany. All are farmers, and their chief object is to make money.

They seem desirous to have their children educated, but they differed so much about almost everything, that they could not build a schoolhouse. I was told, also, when I came that they would not pay a teacher for more than three months in a year. At first they were very suspicious,

Page 122 view page image

122 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. and watched me narrowly; but, through the blessing of my Heavenly Father, I have gained their good will and confidence, so that they have built me a good frame schoolhouse, with writing-desks and a blackboard, and promise to support me all the year round. “I commence school every day with reading the Bible and prayer; this was new to them, but they made no objections. The people here spend Sunday in hunting, fishing, and visiting. I have commenced a Sabbath-school and invited the parents to come with their children. They seem much pleased, and many come three and four miles. They never heard of a Sundayschool before. Last Sunday there were fifty present, and I proposed that we should have a Bibleclass for the men, and that Mr. -, a professor of religion near this place, should take charge of it, while I attended to the women and children. There being no church nearer than seven miles, the people think it too much trouble to go to it. I have persuaded them to invite the nearest clergyman to preach in my schoolhouse next Sunday. “My greatest trials here are the want of religious privileges, the difficulty of sending to the distant postoffice, the entire want of social sympathy, and the manner in which I am obliged to live. I board where there are eight children and the parents, and only two rooms in the house. I must do as the family do about washing, as there is but one basin and no place to go to wash but out the door. I have not enjoyed the luxury of either lamp or candle, their only light being a cup of grease with a rag for a wick. Evening is my only time to write, but this kind of light makes such a

Page 123 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 1223 disagreeable smoke and smell I cannot bear it, and do without light except the fire. I occupy a room with three of the children and a niece who boards here. The other room serves as a kitchen, parlor, and bedroom for the rest of the family. “I have read your -)omestic Economy through to the family, one chapter a day. They like it, and have adopted some of your suggestions in regard both to order and to health. They used to drink coffee three times a day. Now they use it only once a day. Their bread used to be heavy and half-baked, but I made yeast by the receiptin your book, and thus made some good bread. They were much pleased with it, and I have made such ever since. “The people here are very ignorant; very few of them can either read or write, but they wish to have their children taught. They spend Sunday in visiting and idleness, and the fact that I kept Sundayschool for them without pay convinced them that my real object was to do good. The people in the settlements around are anxious to have mere of the teachers come out. They have sent for Miss H., who came out with me, but she was engaged. I was sorry, as it would have been a comfort to have had one friend within reaching distance. “When I came here I intended to stay only one term; but the people urged me so much to remain, and have done so much in building me a schoolhouse, that I concluded to stay longer. I did not leave my home to seek pleasure, wealth, or fame, and I do believe my Heavenly Father will bless my labors here, even if I never see the fruit. The people seem to like me, say their children never behaved so well before, were pres

Page 124 view page image

124 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. ent at my examination, and like the Eastern way of keeping schooL” Extract of another Letter from the Same. “Your kind letter was received last Thursday, and would have been immediately answered, but I was sent for to visit a sick child. The parents;“being Catholic, were much alarmed lest it should die unbaptized. I explained as well as I could the nature and object of baptism, succeeded in quieting their fears, and, as they urged it, I staid all night in the cabin, with only one room, holding nine grown persons besides two children and the sick infant. There was no window, and they kept both doors shut till I persuaded them to leave a small opening to one door. In the morning I walked through the wet prairie and thus took a heavy cold, and for three weeks have been unable to use my eyes. “As soon as I could I took the draft you sent me to the nearest large town and purchased the articles you directed. Ever since I have enjoyed the luxury of bathing and candlelight, and, with my screen, I can be alone at least in a corner. I can never sufficiently thank you for your kindness in thus adding to my comfort and usefulness in a strange land. I am much pleased at the prospect of the books you have sent to me, and the children are highly delighted. Many of my scholars are now sick, and my own health is not so good as it was, as I have watched a good deal with my scholars who were sick of the scarlet and winter fevers. There is a broad field of usefulness here, large enough for all who wish to come. I have never regretted that I came, and if I am made the instrument of bringing only one to the knowledge of the truth, I shall be amply

Page 125 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 12~ repaid for the sacrifices I have made in this noble cause.” Extract from her last Letter. “I am sorry to inform you that on account of illhealth I was obliged to give up my school at. While watching with my scholars I was seized with chills and fever.

When better I accepted an invitation to this place, which is more healthy.

There are over eighty children here without schools,” etc. The following is from a lady belonging to the Baptist denomination, located near the Indian tribes at the upper part of the Mississippi River in the then new territory of Minne sota: “I have been invited to St. Croix, and, on many accounts, speaking after the manner of men, it would be vastly more pleasant. I have also been invited to the Falls of St. Anthony, near me.

But I feel that this is the spot that heaven designed for me, nor would I change situations with any person living. The refinements of society, the wealth or honor of earth, cannot attract me from this isolated spot so long as God has work for me here. I have never had the first regret at having come; on the contrary, it is a theme of constant thankfulness that I was enabled to forsake the dear delights of home and refined society for my Saviour and the good of this dear people. “Perhaps my present circumstances may to you seem dark, but to me there is no cloud, for I trust the promise,‘all things work together for good to those who love God.’ I have now been confined by illness

Page 126 view page image

126 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. about two months -a fever, with a relapse which brought me still lower. I am still very weak, and today walked in the yard for the first time since I was taken sick. My work has, of course, been interrupted. The Sundayschool has been kept up at my request by two young men, but without prayer. To my knowledge there is not a professor of religion in town except myself. In some way, yet unknown to me, I expect greater good will come from this than if I had remained well.

I have received every possible attention and sympathy, and four physicians have come to offer their gratuitous services. “The expense of living here is very great, as much so as in cities, and the people here will only be able to furnish me board and a school-room. This is decidedly missionary ground, and I wish to be enabled to act accordingly. I am needing aid immediately. “My success here has beyond measure surpassed my highest anticipations; to God be the praise. I have heard but one sermon since I have been here, but my Sabbaths have been most happy.”’ The following letter is from a lady of the Congregational denomination, one of the most mature and judicious of the wholl number. Her letter was in reply to inquiri~ made as to the modes in which her usefulnel could be increased, and her comfort promoted by money. She also is stationed in what is properly called the missionary field. And it is in this field that the larger portion of chil

Page 127 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 127 dren are to be found who may be considered as utterly destitute and neglected: ” DEAR MISS B.: I address you with many pleasant and grateful recollections of the intercourse it was my privilege to enjoy with yourself and the other dear ladies associated with you at Hartford, a privilege that every day makes more precious. * We arrived safely, after a pleasant journey, and I am now located in this place, which is the county town of a newly organized county. The only church built here is a Catholic, but the Presbyterians, Campbellites, Baptists, and Methodists are the chief denominations. The last are trying to build a church and have preaching once a fortnight. The Sabbath is little regarded, and is more a day for diversion than devotion.

“I board with a physician, and the house has only two rooms. One serves as kitchen, eating, and sittingroom; the other, where I lodge, serves also as the doctor’s office, and there is no time, night or day, when I am not liable to interruption. “My school embraces both sexes, and all ages from five to seventeen, and not one can read intelligibly. They have no idea of the proprieties of the school-room or of study, and I am often at a loss to know what to do for them. Could you see them, your sympathies would be awakened, for there are few but what are ragged and dirty in the extreme.

Though it is winter, some are without stockings, and one delicate little girl came with stockings and no shoes. The first day I felt like having a thorough ablution of both the room and the occupants, they were so filthy.

“I had to wait two weeks before I could get three

Page 128 view page image

128 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. broken panes mended and a few poor benches brought in. My furniture consists now of these benches, a single board put up against the side of the room for a writing-desk, a few bricks for andirons, and a stick of wood for shovel and tongs. I have been promised a blackboard, but I find that promises are little to be relied on. The first week I took a severe cold by being obliged to keep both doors open to let out the smoke. The weather is much colder than I expected, and the houses are so poor we feel the cold much more. “I am told they are abundantly able to support a minister and pay a teacher, but could you see them grouped together on Sunday you would think they could do neither. I learn that the place is considered not a healthy one, still I do not wish to leave on this account, if it is judged best for me to remain. I came expecting to make sacrifices and suffer privations. When Sunday evening comes I feel more than ever the want of some place for retirement, where I can join in concert with those who at this hour unite in prayer-for this noble cause. - Those seasons of social communion and prayer at Hartford I shall never forget; they come like balm to the spirit when oppressed with care. There is so much to do, and, where all are so ignorant, so much instruction to give, one cannot but feel anxious to know what will be most profitable. I long and I hope to see things wear a more cheerful aspect, and for this would labor untiringly.’ Hope on and hope ever’ I would take as my motto.” Extract of another Letter from the same Teacher. “Many thanks for your letter; it came when I much needed something to cheer and encourage, and it did

Page 129 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 129 both. In reply to your questions, I would say that books might be loaned here to some extent with advantage.

I have lent your Domestic Economy around, and have received applications for six copies from those who will pay. “I have a married woman and two of her children now attending my school as pupils. She is anxious to have me form a reading-circle, to meet once a week; but there are so many bickerings and so much gossip, I fear I shall not succeed, but I shall make the attempt. “I think some money would much promote my usefulness here in purchasing suitable books to read in such a circle and to loan, also to furnish schoolbooks to some of my poor children who can get none.

Maps are needed much, and some simple apparatus would greatly add to the attractions of the school and the usefulness of the teacher. I have four from one family and another of seventeen is coming, and none of them ever were in a school before. Something to interest and aid such would help me much. I need slates, pencils, and paper, and sometimes I would buy a pair of shoes for a poor child who has none. “There is work enough for two teachers here if all who ought to come to school could be drawn in, and I think two together would accomplish more than three when located each alone. A small frame house, plastered, with a chimney, would cost about one hundred and twenty dollars, and if one could be put up, and two teachers keep house and teach in it, it would be an excellent plan. A teacher may chance sometimes to be left without any place to abide in, a situation in which I have just been placed. The physician where

Page 130 view page image

EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. I boarded left town, and I could engage no other place and was about to leave. But some were so anxious to have me remain that I concluded to hire a room and a little furniture and keep house by myself. I like it much, but it takes up too much of my time. “The people promised if I would stay they would build me a schoolhouse, but since I iw,ve consented to remain I hear nothing said about it. There is a great deal to be done here, and I cannot but hope I may be the instrument of good to this people; and if it is but little, I shall not regret the privations or sacrifices I may suffer.” The following is from a teacher of the Methodist Church: “I was a little disappointed at first with my location, for I had hoped to establish a High School for young ladies. But since I have found what extensive influence I can exert here, I feel willing to follow His example who came to’ the poor of this world.’ This term r have had over three hundred children, and four fths are Catholics.

I have only one assistant, and my school averages over two hundred daily.

It is a public school and I have charge of the primary department. The schoolhouse is one of the best in the city. I have an excellent home with the pastor of the Bethel church, and am a teacher of the Sundayschool connected with it. The Lord has blessed this effort and the school has flourished. I also have a tract dis trict, embracing sixty-three families that send to my school. These I visit every month. They are all Catholics except a few families. Last month only three refused to receive tracts. I never worked harder

Page 131 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 131 never enjoyed better health, and never was happier in my life. I rejoice that I came, and trust I shall never cause you to regret having sent me. Three of our teachers came into this city this week to see me. They were well and in excellent spirits.”

The next letter is from a Presbyterian teacher in a flourishing town of some three thousand inhabitants, where I had succeeded in interesting some gentlemen to act as a committee to aid in building up a school. They had invited me to send two teachers, but I sent only one, and the following gives the history of her experience: “I am sorry to trouble you with another letter so soon, but I feel you will excuse me when I tell’you my present circumstances. I began my school in the building selected, but when the cold weather came it was so uncomfortable that my scholars kept leaving, and the’committee thought it best for me to remove. The basement of the church had been promised me by Mr., and I directed my pupils to assemble there, when, the night before, he came and told me I could not have it. I sent for the only member of the committee who does anything, as I had just had’a chill’ in consequence of staying in the school-room. He concluded something must be done, but that I had better not begin school till another room could be secured, which is almost an impossibility. “If I have not had discouragements here, I know not what the word means.

Beginning at first in the wrong place, in an uncomfortable room, in the cold season,

Page 132 view page image

132 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. surrounded by divisions and jealousies of all sorts, obliged to stop in the middle of the first term, obliged to hunt up a room and begin all over again, fighting’ the chills’ all the time-this is hard work. Then my land lord is anxious about pay, and this is humiliating. Shall I be assisted in paying my expenses? for the school will not support me.”’ The above is a fair illustration of what many teachers must meet in attempting to raise schools in our newer settlements. After raising needful funds, I made a tour through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin, where those needing help were located. Thus I learned their character, their wants, and the peculiar fields of labor in which they were stationed. And the record of zeal, discretion, self-denying labors and success, amid innumerable trials and difficulties of these two classes and of the succeeding ones, is worthy the brightest pages of the primitive church. And their example, I trust, will win many others to the same heroic labors. Such noble Christian women still abound unemployed, and such dark places are to be found all over our nation, not alone in our newer settlements, but often in the richest and oldest States.

Page 133 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION,’~o3 And it is very important that there should be clear ideas on the diverse character and wants of our destitute sections. In large portions of the newer States where society is most advanced, a good teacher is well received, well supported, and enrcounters no more trials or privations than she would meet in the older States. For such places nothing is needed but to secure good teachers and to transfer them to their field of labor. But a very small portion of the demands have been from places of this character. Ordinarily teachers crowd to such positions, so that there are more teachers of one sort and another, than there are places of this kind to offer. But there are two other kinds of places in our newer States, which are the chief and most important fields for the efforts of energetic and self-denying women, who enter this service mainly from the desire of doing good. In the first place, there are those large towns and villages in the newer States, which, as it respects-size and wealth, are abundantly able to support good teachers, and where also the people sufficiently appreciate education to be willing to pay liberally for it. But all attempts to raise up permanent schools are

Page 134 view page image

134 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. met by the embarrassments incident to a newv and forming state of society. These difficulties arise chiefly from a want of unionz among a population made up of individuals from almost every State, section, seyt, and nation, that can be named. To this add the increased stringency of sectarian jealousies, where every church in the place is just struggling into a precarious and doubtful existence. To these add the difficulty of obtaining competent teachers on the ground, or from abroad; and the constant influx of incompetent teachers making high pretensions, whose frequent failures generate suspicion and distrust towards the good teachers who may follow. Add to all these, the impulsive, generous, and enterprising character of Western society, leading to the hasty adoption of schemes for public benefit, till frequent disappointments breed distrust of all schemes and their originators. No person can conceive, but one who has mingled in such communities, the endless difficulties that meet the few intelligent and enterprising friends of education, that attempt to bring about such a degree of union and harmony, as alone can secure permanent and prosperous schools.

Page 135 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUICATION. ][15 I will mention a few illustrations that came to my knowledge in that tour. In oLie case I visited a flourishing town of four hundred inhabitants. But in this community were individuals belonging to gt least tze,e’Cle different denominations, and of the most numerous portions, each jealous lest the other should start first and draw in the rest. The consequence was, no church, or even Sundayschool, of any sect could be sustained, nor could they unite on any plan. As the teacher whom I placed there was supported by the leading men of one political party, the other party set up an opposition school, and the result was, neither teacher could be supported, and both had to leave the place for want of’ support. In another large place of some two or three thousand inhabitants, the two most influential men were leaders of opposing factions, so that a school patronized by one was neglected or opposed by the other. In consequence, the teacher sent there could not be sustained. In another still larger place, the divisions of society and the influx of poor teachers, in the short space of six months, had presented twenty different teachers commencing and

Page 136 view page image

136 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. ending their schools, leaving the inhabitants utterly discouraged and disgusted with new and vain enterprises. In another large and beautiful place, a Female Seminary, having for trustees some of the most influential men in the town, was opposed by a faction who were personally inimical to the trustees. A rival school was started by them, and the teacher, after laboring there for more than a year, was so involved in the contest and difficulties engendered, that it seriously impaired her health. The last class of places to which our teachers were sent, were towns and villages where the state of society and modes of living involved great privations, and in a measure risk the health; and where also the jealousies and feuds of a new society greatly embarrass every attempt that demands union. This is pre eminently the field of missions, demanding the most self-denying labor to which male or female missionaries are ever called. The for eign field, in most cases, has nothing that compares to it. It was midwinter when such letters as have been given as specimens seemed to demand

Page 137 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 137 almost any risk on my part, and so with funds furnished by the ladies of Brooklyn, New York, and Philadelphia, and a lady of enterprise and benevolence as traveling companion, I went to Burlington, Iowa, hired a house-spent three hundred dollars of my own in furniture-went to housekeepingsent for ten of our teachers located on the Mississippi, or its branches, who were either ill or out of employment, and took care of them till I found new and suitable situations for all of them. On this tour, or soon after, I visited Indianapolis, Davenport, Rock Island, Galena, Jacksonville, Quincy, and Milwaukee, to consult with their leading citizens in regard to the plan I had attempted, and in which Governor Slade and the Executive Committee of the Board of National Popular Education at Cleveland declined to take any part-except that of transferring teachers from the Eastern States, without providing for their protection and emergencies after location. The plan as I presented it to the most influential ladies as well as gentlemen in those Western cities, was briefly this: To establish high schools at central points on the college

Page 138 view page image

138 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. plan of a faculty of coequal teachers, instead of having a princifpal with subordinates; to have the trustees of the institutions represent the chief religious denominations, and also the faculty of instructors so far ~s it could be done without sacrificing the requisites of superior experience and culture in the teachers selected, thus avoiding the great obstacles of sectarianism; to have a Normal Department in each, including every advantage obtained in Eastern Normal Schools, and one which would be far more economical than the Eastern method; to have a boardinghouse for this Normal Department, so endowed as to serve as a home for teachers in all emergencies; to have committees of ladies from the larger denominations, both East and West, to aid in the selecting, training and care of teachers, both from abroad and the State where the institutions were located; to have these institutions in large towns or cities, where pupils abound and can live at home, thus avoiding large outlays for buildings and expenses for board; and finally to employ women as agents, with proper salaries, as men employ agents of their own sex, to raise up and endow their colleges and professional schools.

Page 139 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 139 This plan met universal and unanimous approval wherever I presented it. At Jacksonville, Pres.

Sturtevant, of Illinois College, organized a committee of gentlemen from five different denominations to cooperate. At that place I found some of the managers of an association of ladies of Illinois, who for seventeenyears had been raising funds in different parts of the State to educate women for teachers, the daughters of Home Missionaries, and orphan girls being special objects of attention, and the success of this quiet association was most remarkable and encouraging. The following extract from a Western clergyman expresses views that were urged on my attention wherever I went: ”’ This point is a very important one for the establishment of one of your Model High Schools. Three or four teachers could accomplish a great work here, and now is the time I The whole region here needs what it has never had-a specimen of thorough, successful, modern teaching. Our position at the corner of three great states is very important, as well as the moral and commercial position of our city.

“There is a considerable number of young ladies and girls in this city who might be collected into a Female Seminary here if sufficient inducements were held out and the enterprise commenced with sufficient strength. And there is a large number of young wo

Page 140 view page image

140 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. men in the country around, from five to fifty miles, that could be drawn into a strong Seminary who could never be attracted by one teacher, however highly qualified. “The Catholic Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, just started here, is filling up rapidly, having already sixty or seventy pupils, a portion of them being Protestants. An equal number (to say the least), and those who are more advanced in education, could be obtained could we start a vigorously conducted Protestant Seminary of a high order. But it must be of a high order, and appear so. We must be able to advertise that our teachers are able to instruct in a large variety of branches, and among them the accomplishments such as music, drawing, plain and fine needlework, etc. It is the teaching of these by the Sisters of Mercy that is made the reason why Protestant children are sent to them. “The new Board of Trustees to our Female Seminary (of which the writer is President) has just been organized. We have decided to suspend our male department and appropriate the whole of one building to the Female Seminary. Our female department has never had the benefit of improved methods of teaching, and this would give the teachers you might send very decided advantages. Here, too, we have none of the prejudices against Eastern teachers that exist in some places. “The whole success of this enterprise depends upon the character of the teachers you may send. On this account we are anxious to obtain some of those who have recently visited our city. They have made a very favorable impression on all who have had the pleasure of seeing them. It is of great importance to

Page 141 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 141 secure them, both on account of their personal character and also on account of past difficulties that have embarrassed our institution. The young ladies whom it is most impor-ant to draw into such a school have always been sent to the more fashionable schools, and the teachers of our schools have been wanting in certain graces highly valued by a large portion of our community. Indeed, a certain rank in society, and a certain agreeableness of manner usually connected with it, have been wanting in our teachers, and in these respects those we wish to obtain:by your aid surpass any teachers who have visited us. WVe are certain that such as these can make such an enterprise go, and without such it 7oill not succeed. “I am often enquired of for your teachers; will you write what teachers are coming to this quarter this session?” Another letter was received from a committee of gentlemen in another large town, requesting that an institution of the kind proposed may be located in that place, and offering a good building for a Seminary, free of expense for two years, and also to provide a suitable boardinghouse near by. The citizens had also formed a company, with shares of twenty dollars each, for the purpose of purchasing this building and erecting additional accommodations. Their Committee also pledged from seventy to ninety pupils from the place and its vicinity, and

Page 142 view page image

142 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. represented that there was to institution of the kind in the surrounding country, so that pupils would come in from the country around. This had all resulted from the prospect held out by my agent employed far this object. The agent I employed was supported by selling my works on Domestic Economy, which the Harpers gave to me at cost. He made an extensive tour and writes thus: “I cannot close without remarking that this part of the enterprise meets with a decided preference in the minds of the people of this State. If we can succeed in establishing two or three such schools, so as to secure their permanency, it will do more for the cause of education than the Board of National Popular -Education could effect on its present limited mode of operation in ten years.” The following extract of a letter from Pres. Sturtevant, of Illinois College, gives his views on this subject: “ILLINOIS COLLEGE, 4April 23, 1849. “MIss C. E. BEECHER: I am thoroughly convinced of the soundness and practicablility of your genzeral views in reference to the necessity of aiding and fostering institutions in the newer States, which shall be of an elevated eharacter and serve to qualify youth at the West to be good teachers.

Page 143 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. “Some of the outlines of your peculiar plan I highly approve. The organization of the higher schools for women with faculties of coequal teachers I am sure is correct, and is as applicable to female seminaries as to colleges, being absolutely essential to the greatest usefulness of both. “As to the details, I think there is room for a difference of opinion; but any Board of teachers, consisting of intelligent ladies thoroughly qualified for their work, would accomonodate themselves to the peculiar circumstances of their position in such an institution, and I should therefore be willing to trust the matter of details to them. “As to the amount of aid which it will be needful to grant, I differ from you. I believe a much larger endowment will be necessary to make a female seminary of the highest order what it should be. I agree with you in regard to the undesirableness of investing funds given to promote education in extensive buildings. I desire no buildings for such institutions to be reared by such benefactions except what may be needed simply for the purpose of instruction. But such institutions, to-be what we need, must have, at public expense, a good collection of philosophical and chemical apparatus, a good library, and funds for the support of instructors. And were I to give you my personal advice in this matter, it would be that at first you attempt but one institution-that you nurse it sedulously-that you do for it all that it needs. “I wish to add to these suggestions that we feel much interest in your efforts at the West because you are sustaining an Agent who has done much for the cause of popular education, and, if continued in the 143

Page 144 view page image

144 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. field, will-do much more. He is a man of strong mind, sound judgment, enlarged and generous interest in the cause, and of a truly effective popular eloquence. If nothing is accomplished but to keep him in the field, it will be much, and will compensate for much toil and care. Yours very truly,.4 “J. M. STURTEVANT.” The following are some of the advantages that were anticipated from the establishment of such institutions. In the first place they would do for female education what colleges do for the other sex. They would be permanent centers of influence; they would train up teachers for all the vicinity around; they would raise the standard of female education; they would be conspicuous objects of interest and observation to other high schools of the State, quickening them to attain as high a standard, and to introduce all the improved methods there displayed. All the vicinity around would learn of the advantages of such schools, and would be drawn in to seek for teachers for their own districts, educated on these improved methods, These institutions also would be the homes of the teachers of the board in all emergencies, and the ladies conducting them would naturally become their friends and advisers.

Page 145 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 145 And thus would be devised the wisest and most efficacious measures for providing for the class of hard-working missionary teachers. Thus also the Committee and agents would be enabled to decide when it was needful to send out two teachers together; when it was best to remove one teacher who might be wearing down, and to send a fresh recruit to her place; when and where it might be expedient for teachers to attempt to keep house on the plan suggested in one of the letters of the teachers. And finally, they could aid the committee and agent in deciding as to the application of whatever might be furnished to promote the personal comfort and health of missionary teachers, and to add to their means of instruction and usefulness. Again, these institutions would naturally become the points to which all applications for teachers in the vicinity would flow, thus enabling them first to provide for all properly qualified teachers around them, and when these failed, to send to the East exact accounts of what sort of teachers are needed, and what sort of places are offered. It is very certain, as I found by experiment, in Iowa, that many villages would send to a neighboring town for

Page 146 view page image

146 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. teachers, whose prejudices would prevent their serding to New England for one. And the fact that the persons looking for a teacher could go and see her and converse with her, and could make inquiries of those who are acquainted with her, would have a great effect. Multitudes of places would secure teachers on this plan, when they would not take the risk and responsibility of getting a teacher by corresponding with a committee and a teacher a thousand miles off.

Again, the methods here proposed would tend to secure, not only permanency to female institutions at the West, but thoroughness to female education there, so that all women, as a general rule, would be fitted to become teachers, either to their own children or in regular schools. They would tend also to preserve the health of teachers coming from the East, by rendering their labors and cares less onerous, and their exposures less severe., And while they would raise up teachers on the soil, they would tend as effectively to draw the best class of teachers from the East. But few of this class can be induced to enter a service like this, till such provisions are made for their health and success as never yet have

Page 147 view page image

BOARD OF NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION. 147 been proposed. The wants of our newer States are altogether beyond any supply that the East and West together can now furnish, at least of good teachers. And whenever permanent agents are put into the moxe destitute fields, as they may be, to lecture and raise up schools, there will be a demand which will altogether exceed any supply which is now in existence. Again, such institutions would remedy the principal cause of objection to this enterprise, felt by many of the best friends of education at the West. It had been urged by such that while good teachers from the East were needed and should be cheerfully welcomed, there was danger that this mode of operation would interfere with the interests of residents on the soil, who would make just as good teachers, if the same amount of efforts and funds were applied as were employed in preparing and sending out Eastern teachers. It was urged by them that in every important vicinity there are many young women who by a short period of training could be fitted for efficient and useful teachers. And still more it was urged that such teachers would accommodate to the habits and cus

Page 148 view page image

148 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. toms of the people with less sacrifice, while they would encounter less prejudice and suspicion. Nothing could be more efficacious in meeting these reasonable apprehensions and requirements than institutions expressly designed to aid Western women in their efforts to obtain such an education as would fit them to be teachers. And in every place where such high schools were established there would always be found intelligent and deserving young women, who might be trained gratuitously, if need be, to become teachers, and that without any increase of expense to the institution. Of these, a most important and most interesting class was the Daughters of our Tome fMissionaries. Many of these were entirely deprived of all advantages of education, while their toiling and self-sacrificing parents were urging to their own hearts, no less than to their fellow Christians who dwell in ease and plenty, “Why are the duties of self-denial so unequally divided?

Must we sacrifice our children as well as ourselves?”

Page 149 view page image

CHAPTER XI. MILWAIJKEE FEMALE COLLEGE. HILE I was at Burlington, Iowa, and at Quincy, Ill., the citizens were so anxious to secure such an institution, and made such liberal offers, that in both places I selected teachers and organized large and popular schools on the college plan. But the effort to sustain them was too great for my strength. A severe illness prostrated me for months, and the two institutions, after temporary prosperity, gave up the college mode of organization and fared as do most institutions for women where one principal has to bear the whole responsibility. On the recovery of my health I was invited to come to Milwaukee, by Mrs. Rev. William L. Parsons, who was conducting a popular school. She offered to merge her school in such an institution and become one of its coequal teachers if I would attempt to carry out such a plan in that city. Thus invited, I vis

Page 150 view page image

150 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. ited the place and was favorably impressed with the advantages it offered. With funds of my own in addition to those given me by Eastern ladies, I offered to provide teachers, organize an institution on the college plan of coequal teachers, and provide Iibrary and apparatus to the value of one thousand dollars, on condition that the citizens elected trustees from the several denominations, provided suitable temporary accommodations, and warranted a certain amount of tuition fees. Although these terms were not fully met, the library and apparatus were furnished and the school organized, which soon numbered over one hundred. It was then proposed that the citizens should provide land and a suitable building. This they attempted to do, but were unable to raise enough even to pay for the land needed. I then requested Rev. Mr.

Parsons to join me at the East, and we raised enough, in addition to that subscribed by the citizens, to secure the purchase of the land. But a suitable building could not be provided by the citizens. For at that time.

this young city was only twenty years old and contained only twenty thousand inhabitants, a large portion

Page 151 view page image

MILWAUKEE FEMALE COLLEGE. being foreigners. During that short time they had to build their houses, stores, churches, school houses, grade and pave their streets, and accomplish most of what in older States is done by a former generation. These extracts from a letter of one of the trustees show the difficulties to be met, and the gen erous character of the people: “Our city within a short time has expended thirtytwo thousand five hundred dollars for public schools, having erected one large building in each ward, and the schools being entirely free. “Fifty thousand dollars have been spent in Protestant churches, and more than this has been spent by the Catholics. The city has spent over two-hundred thousand dollars for grading alone, besides all the other improvements for which the city has been roundly taxed. Our taxes, as near as I can find out, must be five per cent. orr the valuation of property, which valuation, however, is considerably below the real value. [An Eastern gentleman, residing there, told the author that if any Eastern city were taxed as were the inhabitants of Milwaukee, there would be a rebellion, and the taxes could never be collected.] “The Common Council, tired of waiting for Congress o aid them-, have just voted what will involve an expenditure of some twenty thousand dollars for the improvement of our harbor. Our capitalists are now straining every nerve to finish the’Mississippi Railroad’ and several plankroads. These are absorbing interests to business men, 151

Page 152 view page image

152 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. and, to them, vastly more important than female semi naries. “For the past two years, wheat, the grand staple of Wisconsin, has failed, and the city and country around are sorely embarrassed by it. Many of our merchants are discouraged and almost ready to give up. They cannot pay their debts, and have’the glues’ the worst way. The impression now is that we are to have another short crop, as much of the wheat is undoubtedly winter-killed. This discourages the farmers and makes them inefficient. “In this state of things, you can perhaps imagine what we should have to meet in attempting to raise funds for such a building as we need. One of our trustees, and a wealthy man, told me he knew not how to get money to pay his taxes, and that many would not be able to pay them. I think it is now out of the question if a building depends on money to be raised here. And unless we have a good crop this fall, it will be still more difficult next year. The Congregationalists have just built themselves a new church, and the Presbyterians are to build next year. The Episcopalians are aiming to have a school of their own, managed exclusively by themselves. Recent measures also are tending to influence the Presbyterians to independent sectarian action in establishing schools. “The institution you have established now has the profound confidence of the community. We know it to be so, and the attendance and interest shown at our public examinations prove it. We need nothing to establish it permanently and securely but a suitable building for its accommodation, and the continuance of such teachers as now constitute our faculty.

Page 153 view page image

MILWAUKEE FEMALE COLLEGE. “It is the school of Milwaukee, and destined to exert an amazing influence here if we can be supplied with the requisite accommodations. And success here is vastly important to the whole West, and I dread to have a failure. “The plan for the building which you have sent us is greatly admired. Everybody wants to have it erected. Our editors have talked well for us. But the money is not here. We have started a subscription, drawn up by one of our lawyers, who subscribed two hundred dollars, and we are going to try hard and see what we can do.” In this position of affairs, at my suggestion, Prof. Stowe and Pres.

Sturtevant, who had organized committees to aid this part of our work, consulted the Managers of the Board of National Popular Education, to ascertain whether it was advisable to unite the two organizations so as to have only one, as the leading ladies wished to do. It was decided by those Managers that such a union was inexpedient. In this emergency, after extensive consultation both East and West, it was decided that another organization should be formed in New York city, of which weomen should be the controlling managers. Accordingly, on May 8 and’ I5, 1852, two meetings of ladies selected from eight denominations in that city and elsewhere were con 153

Page 154 view page image

154 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. vened. These ladies embraced women of large experience as housekeepers, mothers, and practical school-teachers, and to them were added several business and professional men of high position and character, from different religious denominations.’” This body was incorporated as the American Woman’s Education Association, and Rev. Wm.

L. Parsons was appointed General Agent, and Mrs. Parsons and Miss Mary Mortimer were the chief educational agents, while I relinquished all responsibility except as one of the Managers. Mr. Parsons immediately succeeded in raising funds which, added to those raised by the citizens, secured the erection of the building needed, and, though with some mistakesf on the plan I had drawn, which was so much admired and approved by the citizens of Milwaukee. This Association, until recently, has met annually in New York to receive reports from their agents and direct future operations. The object of the Association, as set forth in its constitution, is briefly this: “To aid in securing to American women’a liberal education, honorable position, and remunerative employment in their appropriate profession, by

Page 155 view page image

MILWAUkEE FEMALE COLLEGE. means of endowed institutions, on the college plan of organization; these institutions to include all that is gained by normal schools, and also to train women to be healthful, intelligent, and successful wiyes, mottiers, and housekeepers.” The measure of success of this Association will appear in the following, abridged from their first and second Annual Report: “At first the offer was made of a library and apparatus to the value of one thousand dollars, on condition that the citizens of Milwaukee should furnish suitable temporary accommodations and guarantee the support of four superior teachers by tuition fees. This being done, the institution was organized on the college plan, and soon numbered one hundred and forty pupils. Then it was proposed that the citizens should erect a suitable building, on condition that the Association should attempt to raise $20,000 for an endowment. By the aid of Eastern friends this was done, and a gentleman in New York became responsible for that sum, and for a time paid the interest on it, intending soon to advance the principal.” In the second annual report we find these 155

Page 156 view page image

156 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. details: “But two years have elapsed since this Association was formed, and we have secured the establishment of two institutions, one at Milwaukee, Wis., and the other at Dubuque, Iowa, with noble faculties, training from two to three hundred pupils. At Milwaukee the pupils have numbered one hundred and sixty; twenty-five have gone out as teachers; seven have become honored graduates, and many young ladies are enthusiastically pursuing their studies, so that increasingly large classes will graduate each coming year. Our institution at Dubuque has commenced with most favorable auspices. The city, though numbering only 9,ooo, has done nobly, expending some $I7,000 on grounds and a building like that at Milwaukee. All the leading gentlemen of the city, of every political party and religious denomination, are of one accord in sustaining the school. We are also encouraged by two gentlemen to expect the amount needed to endow these two insti tutions. The citizens of Kalamazoo, Mich., are deeply interested in our plan, and a com mittee of prominent gentlemen have urged us to make that place the point for our next institution.”

Page 157 view page image

MILWAUKEE FEMALE COLLEGE. The economy of this method of establishing institutions for the higher education of women is deserving of special notice. For by one operation at Milwaukee, and with so small an outlay, were secured a permanent high-school for girls, and a Normal School as valuable as those of Massachusetts and New York, which have demanded large outlays for buildings, and some of them an income of $IO,OOO a year from the State. By placing the institution in the city instead of a small place, the necessity of large buildings for board and lodging and the evils of boarding-school life are avoided. The portion of our plan which was not completed was thelndowment and organization of the Health and Domestic Departments; each to have a Principal and Associate Principal.

According to this plan the Principal of the Health Department would maintain a system of physical training in which both teachers and pupils would take part, the aim being to develop perfectly every bodily organ, to remedy personal habits and defects, to teach a lady-like carriage of the body, the easy and proper mode of walking and sitting, graceful movement of the hand, arms and 157

Page 158 view page image

158’ EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. body; to sustain a graceful as well as healthful and pleasing system of Calisthenic exercise as a part of school duty; to enforce all tlhe laws of health; to lecture on the distinctive duties of wife and mother to the graduating classes; to teach the classes in Physiology; to superintend the teachers of Writing and Drawing, and, finally, to supervise the whole establishment as it respects warming and ventilation. The Principals of the Domestic Department would have the charge of all relating to the esthetic, social and domestic, and teach both the science and practice.of Domestic Economy. They would by lectures and books instruct in the fine arts, and superintend, classes in needlework, and the cutting and fitting, cleansing and mending of clothing. The supervision of the school and family building would belong to this department,. Each of these departments would be provided with model dwelling-houses, illustrating proper and tasteful modes of construction, furniture, ornamentation, warming and ventilation. The family in each dwelling would consist of the Principal and Associate Principal, and ten of the pupils of the school, and

Page 159 view page image

MILWAUKEE FEMALI,E COLLEGE. they would do all the family work, except some items of heavy labor. A circulating system would employ every member of the family one or two hours, and in such rotation that in a given time each one will have been instructed in and will perform every operation included in family life. When each pupil is thus trained she would give place to another of the scholars, and each would remain a longer or shorter time according to proficiency acquired at school or at home. One of these buildings, or another erected for the purpose, would be a homne for teachers sent out by the Association, in cases of illness or other emergencies. . The farther history of the institutions established by the Association will appear in another chapter. 159

Page 160 view page image

CHAPTER XI4 COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. HE object of this chapter is to show what has been accomplished in the last half century by Christian women in educating their own sex without the aid which has been so abundantly bestowed for educating young men. And it is done with the hope of promoting more liberal views and measures in time to come. MISS MARY

HILLHOUSE. How much I owed to the mother and aunt who trained to usefulness the numerous family of my father, and formed my own character and habits, and to my associate teachers at Hartford, has been only imperfectly exhibited. Next to them in grateful memory should be placed a lady who, in all my educational efforts, was my sympathizing friend and counselor. Her father was James Hillhouse, of New Haven, for sixteen years Senator of

Page 161 view page image

COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. the United States, and afterwards the wise and energetic Treasurer of Yale College, and ‘Commissioner of the Connecticut School Fund. When about eleven years old she was present at the close of Washington’s term of office, and was invited with her parents by Mrs.

Washington to tea, where the President took her by the hand and talked with her in the kindest manner. She also heard Washington’s farewell address, and writes thus to her mother: “President Washington is the handsomest man I ever saw. He was drest in black velvet with clean cambric ruffles, which I liked much better than the yellow lace of the ambassadors, who, with all their finery, were far surpassed by the plain neatness of the President.” Of her mother the daughter writes thus: “Our mother was distinguished for mental superiority, purity, and delicacy. She was educated in retirement, and almost self-taught, and yet I have heard my brother say, after long experience in the highest circles, that she possessed the most elegant mind he had ever metf.” After the death of this mother her daughter devoted her life to the aid and comfort of her father, 161

Page 162 view page image

162 EDUCATIONAL ]REMINISCENCES. with a de-otion unsurpassed. She aided in his manifold educational efforts, and conducted a large part of his correspondence. President Dwight was her beloved and honored friend, and was interested in her studies and pursuits, as appears in this sentence of her mother’s letter: “Mary began French on Tuesday. I deferred till then for the sake of having Dr. Dwight introduce her, which he was good enough to do.” - She was an extensive reader of history, and of political subjects, and her character combined with great intellectual activity persistent enthusiasm for any useful end, and wise sagacity in devising methods. From the commencement of my efforts to prepare woman for her distinctive profession, Miss Hillhouse was my sympathizing counselor, and one of the earliest who sent me $IOO.OO for the first operation, desiring me to use it for my own expenses as the unpaid agent of the cause; and several other personal friends of my own sex did the same. In New Haven, for many years, she made unavailing efforts to have young girls taught to sew in the public schools, and from her I gained the method described in my Hotse

Page 163 view page image

COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. keeper’s aanzual, which removes many difficulties that have been generally experienced in making this a part of public school instruction. After vainly interceding with school committees she resolved that there should be at least one school where girls of the workingclasses should be taught to sew properly, and to make and mend family clothing. For this end she established a school for colored girls under the care of an intelligent colored woman, where sewing was taught with the common school branches. Afterwards she planned, and in a great measure built with her own funds, the Lincoln schoolhouse, for the instruction of colored girls. She also contributed largely to the endowment of Yale College; and the methods for its pecuniary benefit, which she planned and aided her father to accomplish, as Treasurer of that institution, were eminently generous and sagacious. She lived to the age of eighty-five in the full possession of all her mental powers. On one day she was bright and buoyant as ever, on the next she began to fail, and on the third she peacefully passed from the earth 161

Page 164 view page image

164 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. she had blest so long to her everlasting reward. MRS. EMMA WILLARD. One of the earliest and most distinguished pioneers in the effort to secure,.higher education for woman, was Mrs.

Emma Willard. Like all other women teachers of that period, she was obliged first to educate herself, and then to train her teachers. Assisted by her husband, Dr. Willard, her sister, Mrs. Lincoln Phelps, her son and her daughter-in-law, she made a record that does honor to her sex and country. The institution she established has educated 13,500oo pupils since it commenced, and of these, 8,216 were trained under the care of her son and daughter-in-law after she resigned. 956 of these pupils went forth as teachers, Ioo having received gratuitous board and tuition, and the remainder paid only a portion of their expenses. They boarded in the Seminary, and in many cases received books, stationery, and music without charge. The daughters of all the city clergy received gratuitous tuition, and those from other places had large deductions made from their bills.

Page 165 view page image

COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. Superior teachers sent from this institution established schools of a high order at Patapsco, Md., Philadelphia, Pa., Columbia, S. C., Charleston, S. C., Washington, Pa., New York City, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Montreal, Ca.; and a school established by Bishop Elliot, in Georgia, was conducted by a teacher from Troy Seminary. During the sixty years in which this Seminary was extending its blessings to so many women, vain attempts were made by Mrs. Willard to obtain endowments such as were and are constantly bestowed on institutions for the other sex. She made application to the Legislature in vain. The city of Troy erected the Seminary building, but Mrs. Willard paid an annual-rent equal to the interest of the money invested. The building is now decayed, the apparatus and library, furnished by Mrs. Willard, need to be replenished and increased, but nothing could be done to raise the funds needed for these advantages or for endowments, unless the city authorities of Troy would transfer the property to the Trustees; and such is the political power of the Romanists in the city that this transfer has been denied. 165

Page 166 view page image

166 EDUCATIONAL REMIINISCENCES. This Seminary has received no private benefactions, and no other aid from the State than what is given to all its academies; and what was-thus received was spent not for private use but for the benefit of the pupils. Mrs. Willard took the lead in efforts to elevate the standard of woman’s education, but it was with the high ideal of preparing women for their distinctive duties as chief ministers of the family state, which she deemed so difficult and so important as to demand advantages for both scientific and practical training equal to those bestowed on the other sex. And it was a part of her plan to have all her pupils devote a portion of every week to practical instruction in these duties. Her efforts to obtain endowments to perpetuate her enfarged views failed in the New York Legislature, though advocated by De Witt Clinton and other statesmen of ability and influence. TEACHERS OF IPSWICH

AND MT. HOLYOKE SEMINARIES. In a former chapter I have given some account of my valued friends’and counselors, Miss Z. P. Grant (Mrs. Banister) and Mary Lyon, and here will add a brief account of

Page 167 view page image

COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. the result of their labors. In i835 there had, while under their joint care, been sent out from the Ipswich Seminary in Massachusetts during only the preceding five years four hundred female teachers, thirteen of them missionaries to the heathen, and fifty were teaching in destitute sections of the West and South. The Ipswich Seminary under Miss Grant and her successors, who were her pupils, has ever since that year maintained equal usefulness. To Miss Lyon belongs the chief agency in devising and sustaining Mt. Holyoke Seminary. The following account of that institution is abridged from a report of a committee of the Senate of Massachusetts recommending the grant of an endowment to that seminary, which was not granted. At the time this report was made (I867) the Mt. Holyoke Seminary had been in operation thirty years, every attempt for its endowment had failed, and its noble founder, worn out with unexampled labor, had gone to her rest. During that thirty years four thousand pupils had been trained there, and three thousand had gone forth as missionaries or teachers, one hundred of them under the care 167

Page 168 view page image

168 REDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. of the American Board of Missions. In addition to this should be reckoned the institutions that followed this examplenamely, the Oxford Seminary in Southern Ohio, the Painesville Seminary in Northern Ohio, the Wellesley College in Massachusetts, the Mt.

Milton Seminary in England, the seminary near Cape Town in Africa, and the seminary at Oroomia in Asia. Most of these were conducted by women teachers, either trained at Mt. HIolyoke or aiming to copy it. The leading features of the Mt. Holyoke Seminary have been imperfectly comprehended.

Its main object was to provide for the daughters of families of the medium classes an education equal to that gained in our colleges by young men, and one diverse from that of fashionable boarding schools. The peculiar feature of domestic labor was introduced not to teach its details, but to hono, labor and to secure that class of women whose energies and intellect had been developed in household duties. Miss Lyon on thi, point playfully remarked that this feature operated as a sieve to exclude the indolent and frivolous, and to retain the finest wheat. The pupils entered not before sixteen, after

Page 169 view page image

COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. their mothers had trained them in domestic labors; and so by one or two hours a’day of such home-trained workers the economy of the plan so reduced expenses that it has ranged from only $6o to $i50 per annum, according to the rising expenses of food. As to literary success, Professor Tyler of Amherst College, after an anniversary examination in mathematics, history, and moral science, wrote thus: “The whole class appeared better than I ever saw a whole class appear in Amherst College in the same branches. The compositions also would do no discredit to young gentlemen at college either in composition or delivery.

And it is a burning shame that year after year these young ladies should plead in vain for a pittance of facilities so amply provided for their brothers.” The same time the above-mentioned Report was written the following grants had recently been bestowed by the State of Massachusetts on institutions for young men while Mt. Holyoke was denied: $5o,ooo to Tuft’s College, $25,000 to Williams College, $25,000 to Amherst College, $IO,OOO to Cambridge, to add to its millions, and $Io,ooo to the Massachusetts Agricultural Col 169

Page 170 view page image

170 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. lege, besides large private benefactions.

And yet this petition for the first attempt to endow a woman’s institution in Massachusetts in i 864 was rejected. The humble amount of $6o,ooo had been begged in small sums by Miss Lyon and invested in a building, with a little provision for furniture and apparatus, and she died before she saw anything done by the State for its daughters, while millions had been bestowed on its sons. The State of Massachusetts in i864 had never given one dollar to any female seminary. MARIETTE AND EMILY INGUAM. For the first settlement of New England the Lady Fenwick left her rich ancestral home for Christ’s sake, and, after many sacrifices, she was laid to rest on the shore of the Connecticut. Near where her dust reposes a Christian mother gave birth to seven sons and seven daughters, all of whom, under her care and example, became Christian men and women. At the birth of twin daughters, not expecting to live, she gave one to her eldest and one to her second daughter to rear and educate. Ere long the eldest sister, by her skill, industry, and good management, accu

Page 171 view page image

COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. mulated five thousand dollars, and with this educated her child-sister, and then came with her to Central New York, built a house, and established a school, which soon became so popular that they were invited to Leroy on favorable terms. During forty years they have gone on with wise economy and persevering labor till this is the brief record of results: Their leading aim, like Miss Lyon’s, has been to give a liberal education to the medium classes of young women; and their catalogue now shows five thousand thus provided with a superior education at very moderate expense. Of these not less than 460 have gone forth as teachers, while the value of $30,ooo has been bestowed as gratuitous board and instruction. Three hundred and fifty have been graduated as completing the full and liberal course, such as is not surpassed in any institution for women. Meantime, five large buildings have been erected, and three taken down after they became old and useless. All this, and the purchase of twelve acres of land, has been.accomplished by the economical use of school income, with no other contributed outside aid 171

Page 172 view page image

172 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. than $io,ooo to furnish one building and $4,00ooo for needed additional land. And now the property thus earned is appraised to the Regents of New York University at $125,000. All this property is held at this time, not for private ends, but for the benefit of women, and of that class who most need such advantages of education.

For many years the founders of this institution have been seeking that stability and permanence secured to nearly five kundredl colleges and professional schools for young men, all endowed by State or private benefactions at the rate of from half a million to two and three millioneach. In order to do this the’two sisters several years ago transferred their large property to a Presbyterian’Synod, on condition that they would raise anl endowment not so large as one-tenth of what is given to most of our colleges. They gave up their control to the Synod and to Dr. Cox as the head, hoping thus to secure in fluence and endowment.

But in a short time it was found that no endowment came; the new management failed, and the sisters took back the institution and restored its pros perity and usefulness. Since that time hun dreds of thousands have been bestowed on

Page 173 view page image

COUNSELORS AND COLABORERS. several colleges in the near vicinity, while this noble seminary still is seeking for even a pitiful endowment. IVhile writing this article, in a New York newspaper I see it stated that Auburn Theological Seminary, not far from this Seminary at Leroy, and under Presbyterianl care, is about to receive $ioo,ooo, and yet there is a wellendowed Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Princeton, near New York, another in New York city, and some twelve to fifteen others in other States. Then the Congregationalists, who d;.ffer in no important doctrine from the Presbyterians, have Seven well endowed theological seminaries, supporting thirty-five professors and their families, and sixteen lecturers, while only eighty-three ministers are the annual result of these liberal benefactions. In the Reports of the Congregational Society for Promoting College and Theological Education for I87i and‘72, I find $6I,ooo raised in one year chiefly by contributions in Congregational churches, and of this $3,500 is for the expenses of a collecting agent, $I,O00oo for other annual expenses, and $7,ooo for the permanent fund. In these reports it appears that the aim of this Society is to increase the 173

Page 174 view page image

174 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. number of Congregational colleges till there shall be at least one in every one of the newer States. The other large denominations are aiming at similar efforts, as is thus stated in one of these Reports: “In every State in which our Society plants a college, there are almost sure to be a Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian college, if not an Episcopal or Lutheran. And yet all these agents and societies lament the evil of multiplying so many colleges.” It seems from these Reports that Amherst College in Massachusetts cost over a million, Williams nearly as much. Tufts is largely endowed, Cambridge counts endowments by millions, and all in one State. In addition to these are the Congregational, Baptist, Universalist, Methodist and Episcopalian theological seminaries, all well endowed, in the same State; and the Boston New University is starting with liberal endowments. And now it may surprise many, who do not know what the distinctive feature of an American college is, to learn that there is not a single woman’s college in the United States. There is not even one yet organized on the college plan of a faculty of coequal teachers with ezdownmelts to support women

Page 175 view page image

COUNSELORS AND/ COLABORERS. as independent heads of departments like the professors of colleges. Vassar has not a single endowment for either male or female professor. It is simply a large boarding-school, those called professors being annually appointed and supported by boarding and tuition fees. Of the seven teachers called professors, five are men and two women; for the Lady Principal is not a teacher in any college studies. It is true that the word “college ” is used for “any collection of men engaged in a common pursuit,” and for “any incorporated society of scholars for study and instruction,” and for “a building thus used.” But the American college as is generally understood, at least in former days, is “an institution of learning made permanent by endowments to support the highest class of instructors;” and the term “professor,” though now assumed by dancing-masters, music-teachers, and other teachers of almost every art, was formerly confined to the teachers of endowed colleges. And were the endowments that support our colleges taken away, most of themn would come to an end by the loss of the superior teachers retained by these endowments. It is in this 175

Page 176 view page image

176 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. sense that it is said that, so far as I know, there is not a woman’s college in existence. Among my most valued “
counselors and colaborers” should be placed Dr. and Mrs. Parsons and Miss Mary Mortiner, who for twenty years, with faith and patience, have labored with me to bring into existence at least one college for women, with endowments to support women professors. Why our success has been so long delayed will appear in another chapter.

Page 177 view page image

CHAPTER XHI. TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES AND SUPERIN TENDENTS. HE
difficulties that have retarded the success of the American Woman’s Educational Association have been no greater than those involved in all new and untried methods of benevolence. Some of the more prominent will be briefly noticed. A leading one has been presented in the Report of the Commissioner of National Education for I872-3, in which is the following from Prof. Agassiz, who was educated in the best institutions of Germany, and since has resided in Massachusetts: “I am telling my friends in Massachusetts a very bitter thing, and I have become bolder and bolder in saying that I am under the impression that the whole system of popular education is superannuated; that what is taught is no longer the food which the rising generation really wants most, and that the knowledge taught is not the best; so that I would change both the substance and the methods of our common schools.”

Page 178 view page image

178 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. Horace Greeley presents a similar view more in detail, as follows: “I go into one of our public schools, and before me are boys who are to work in shops or mills or till the soil all their lives, and there are girls who are to be wives and mothers of farmers and mechanics; to cook, sew, darn, wash, starch, and make butter and cheese; and when I see them studying Algebra and Trigonometry and Logarithms, and making astronomical calculations, I ask, not whether such studies are not useful for some purposes and persons, but whether this does not preclude or take the place of what would be more useful, what they will urgently need to know, and what would perhaps equally tend to mental discipline and growth. If they were studying Sanscrit or Russian I should not say such knowledge is not desirable, but I should say they gain this by neglecting what would be far more useful in after life. “Let me illustrate: there are thousands in this city of virtuous amiable women who can earn only a pauper’s livelihood by long protracted labor, and often in unhealthful circumstances. Some of them have invalid parents or sisters or little children to support, or wish to educate a dependent young brother or sister. But they have been trained to no particular business, while every place that pays will find enough who are trained. I profoundly pity the noble and helpless thousands whose life is without joy and whose future is without hope, and I protest against the false training all over our land that is rearing thousands more to push them into untimely graves. But how is this to be remedied? I reply, by so transforming our current education that every woman shall be trained to do well one or more use

Page 179 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. 179 ful things which will be always in demand, and also by striving to educate the popular mind to consider all useful work honorable. “This very day there are thousands of refined and expensively educated women vainly seeking employment. Yet every one of them could find employment and high wages had she been trained to be a skillful and scientific cook. Our cooking now is done chiefly by the ignorant, and the results are simply abominable. Our city spends yearly fifty million for food, and at least ten million is squandered in bad and wasteful cooking, beside the waste of health and comfort. “Paris is better fed than New York on three-fourths the amount of raw food, because the art of cooking is almost a liberal profession, receiving high salaries; while even men of rank and literary culture devise and compound food that is economical, appetizing and healthful. “But it is said’cookery with us is vulgar and repulsive.’ True, the labor of ignorant boors and slaves has made it so; but if refined and energetic women would determine to raise this employment to the dignity of an art and science, millions would be saved, and thousands of fine women find an honorable and remunerative profession. “The same might be said of many other employments suitable for women that are degraded by ignorance and vulgarity which if taught scientifically in cur public schools would command honor and wealth to thousands of women now pining. or perishing in poverty.” Not long since a gentleman of Boston stated that when trying to find work for several

Page 180 view page image

180 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. well educated ladies (educated by books, chiefly, not for any practical business), he found every school commissioner was overwhelmed with applications from teachers seeking schools who must be refused, He applied to a Senator at Washington who replied that three hundred women were vainly seeking employment in one Department, that over seventy supernumeraries were turned out of another, and that surely there must be better chances in Boston. The gentleman then went to the Industrial School, where he heard there was a vacancy, and found around the wearied agent nearly fifty women seeking this one place.

While writing these pages, sitting near me is a pupil from the Albany Normal School, where for five school hours she takes notes of lectures that demand four hours out of school to write out for inspection. Then to earn her board four hours must be given to the wearying care of young children, this being thirteen hours in the whole. I gave her Dr. Clark’s work on Sex in Education, and then learned that she had periodic attacks of severe headache at times, when need of rest was imperative and yet was not given. No remonstrances availed, for she must

Page 181 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. 181 complete another year of such taxation in order to graduate, and thus gain a chance to obtain a school.

At the same time a young girl in the family with me was attending the City High School, studying logarithms, algebra, and astronomy, while out of school she must earn her living by house-work and care of a young child, in addition to her school studies. At the same table, as a visitor, sat a fair and delicate young girl who was pursuing the same studies, while her moderate means demanded several hours of care of children, and such home labors as are healthful in suitable circumstances, but exhausting to overtaxed nerves. All these young girls are risking health and life in the hope of gaining a place as school-teachers, in a State where there are twenty applicants or more for every school. And if they fail, their logarithms, algebra and astronomy have fitted them for no available mode of earning a livelihood. And whenever I examine the influence of our public schools, it is to overtax the ambitious mothers that their daughters may “have all their time for study and school.” The preceding illustrates one of the causes of delayed success in the efforts of the A.

W.

Page 182 view page image

182 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. E. Association. It is the want of regard to practical usefulness in those who supervise and conduct our systems of education. Another cause is again set forth by the illustrious and eminently practical as well as learned Agassiz, in the same keport of the National Commission of Education. He says: “The fact that there is no university in the Unitede States the intellectual interests of which are managed by the professors, but always by a corporation outside, shows that we do not understand what a university is. The men who are in it must know better what are the wants of an institution than outsiders. Every college is got up by outsiders and has their curriculum and the professors have to teach that.” The disadvantage of this fact, however injurious to our colleges, is a still greater difficulty in reference to the education of women. If the men who instruct in colleges are better judges of “the wants of an institution” than “outsiders,” much more are women better judges of the proper education of their sex, than are the business and professional men who usually have the supervision both of common schools and the higher female seminarles. In preceding pages it was shown that in the

Page 183 view page image

TRTTSTEES, SCHIOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. 183 case of the Hartford Seminary it was women who had the sole control of education, the Trustees serving only in financial affairs. The Mt. Holyoke Seminary was originated and managed solely by women, as were the Ingham University, Mrs. Willard’s Institution at Troy, and the Ipswich Seminary. Surely these, and many other successful institutions conducted by women, are proofs of the good judgment, skill, and success to be expected from women in managing and supervising the higher institutions as well as common schools. And yet I know of not one woman’s institution where women have equal control with men as trustees or as incumbents of endowed pro fessorships. As Vassar is now the most conspicuous of the so-called colleges for women, it is well to notice the character of its Trustees and some of the results of their management. The board of Trustees includes the President of Rochester University, a bishop of the Episcopal Church, nine other clergymen, one author and twelve business men, who are brewers, or manufacturers, or merchants, or bankers.

In organizing the faculty, the one selected

Page 184 view page image

184 EDUCATIONAL iEMINISCENCES. for President is a gentleman of ability and culture who had good success in a boys’ school, but no experience as an educator of girls. The “professors ” are six gentlemen and but two ladies, and only one of them all had had any experience in teaching or governing young girls, or a school of any kind. Then as to the “curriculum,” or course of study adopted, it is very nearly the same as that of Yale and Cambridge, and nothing withdrawn or added with reference to the preparations of woman for her distinctive profession as housekeeper, mother, nurse, and chief educator of infancy and childhood. Nor is there any recognition of the additional demands on a young woman from which the young man is free. In the single item of dressing the hair, which a man performs in five minutes, what care, contrivance and time do the varieties of fashion demand of a young woman! Then a young woman’s wardrobe, with its multiplied varieties, trimmings and adornments, demand time and thought to prepare and keep in order, which is never required.of a man.

Then the accomplishments that demand time, practice and mental exertion are not a part of the

Page 185 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. i 5 college course for young men. And yet in four years at Vassar all these are expected of a young girl, in addition to the full college course for men, while the young girl is more delicately organized than her brother, and custom forbids the invigorating outdoor exercise gained by -boys. Then there are the musical and literary societies, the newspaper, the concerts, parties and excitements so frequent at Vassar. To this add the strain and excitement of boarding-school life in a family of three or four hundred young girls, which the teachers all allow is wearing and exciting. As to the economical management of educational benefactions, the munificent donor of Vassar furnished over $700oo,ooo000 worth of property, and yet there is not a single dollar invested to support professors. All is spent for a vast building and the appliances for boarding a great family, with only a small proportion for educational purposes. Had this great property been entrusted to the cultivated and practical lady managers of the A. W. E.

Association, it is only fair to sketch what they probably would have planned and accomplished guided by their past measures. Instead of such great expenditures to

Page 186 view page image

186 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. secure a boarding-school, would be only a building for educational purposes in some airy portion of the city of Poughkeepsie, with sufficient outlay for apparatus and library, and for these, two hundred thQusand dollars would be a liberal calculation. This would leave half a million to invest as endowmrents to support teachers of the highest order, so that every young woman of every rank, in the city and adjacent towns, could secure a liberal education free of expense, and without forsaking her simple and quiet home, its duties and blessings. It is probable that Vassar combines an unusual number of requisites for a healthful boarding-school, although unfortunately a building properly warmed and ventilated is not one of them. A highly educated lady physician directs in all matters pertaining to health; abundant, healthful and well cooked food is provided; all are required to retire and rise at proper hours; only three lessons are required in addition to one of the pursuits of art and accomplishments; outdoor sports in boating, floriculture, and rambles in beautiful surroundings are provided; a lady principal devotes her whole time to the care of the manners, habits and conduct of the

Page 187 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCII)OL COMMITTEES, ETC. pupils; and there is no doubt that many young girls, taken from the excitements and unhealthful pursuits of our wealthy classes, are improved in health by a period more or less continued in this institution. But during its eight years ofexistence, I have met the pupils or their parents in almost every section of the nation, and find the impression widely prevalent that great risk is incurred by the long continued excitements of such an institution. It is my impression that a circular, sent -to all who have placed daughters there, would reveal the fact that a large portion were removed on account of failing health. During only one year I met three of the pupils who had left, one with paralysis and two with such prostrated nervous systems as would probably sadden a whole life. During the last year I have been intimately acquainted with several instructors and pupils of this institution, and have observed that all allow that there is excess of excitement and the natural effects, but usually they attribute it not to study, but to the combination of this with many other excitements. Very recently I was in a circle of the pupils and their family friends, when one of the 187

Page 188 view page image

188 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. young girls fainted from a slight blow.

Then I heard her friends remonstrate with her for studying so many hours, and insisting that her attenuated form and pale face were owing to this excess. Then one of the ci,cle remarked that her sister, who was also a pupil of the institution, was equally reduced in health and strength from the same cause. Then at the public examination, the figures and countenances of over eighty pupils in the two most advanced classes, with but few exceptions, exhibited, not the fullness of form and ruddy glow of health, but the attenuation and complexion of overtaxed students. And whenever I remarked this to the teachers and friends of the institution, the fact was always conceded that there was too much excitement of various kinds which tended to nervous exhaustion; but that the amount of study required was not excessive. As I examined the persons and manners of the pupils, also their walk, their manners of sitting, the movements and positions of head and arms, I was more than ever convinced that Dio Lewis’s gymnastics did not ctultivate grace of person and manners, although the lady princi-. pal was a model of both. Aid it has bce. a

Page 189 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. marvel to me that when gracefulness of person and movement is so charming in a woman, in no educational curriculum has it any attention. Only a few months ago I met a former pu pil of Vassar, who was married after a three years’ course at Vassar. At its close she be came a wife and housekeeper, and in less than three years was the mother of two infants, each needing a nurse in addition to a cook, a chambermaid, and a laundress. And yet this delicate girl had never-been trained to perform the many and varied duties thus imposed, and in a short time was obliged to go to board,and serve as another sad warning to young men to beware of the perils of matrimony. And yet all that is included in the science-and practice of woman’s profession could be made a part of her education as readily as men can be trained to agriculture or any of their practical callings, and women need professional training as much as men.

And I urge this not as individual opinion. For during the thirty years that I have been striving to secure at least a small share of liberal training for woman’s sacred ministry, I have always been guided and upheld by intelligent and experienced housekeepers, motheTs 189

Page 190 view page image

190 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. and school-teachers, both as to plans and measures. And the ministers of religion have always met me with approving words, but nothing more has been given. True, access has been offered to men’s colleges, just as if men were the best educators of women, and the college curriculum the best mode of training woman for her profession. It is said that it is mothers who must train daughters at home. But if the mothers have not been prepared for these duties how can they do it? If it were as in former days when mother and daughters did the family work in the simple style then common to all, it would be a reasonable requisition.

But wealth and the varied demands of increased wealth and civilization require a style of living where a woman has more than she can do to train and govern servants and manage a complicated household. The preceding results have been exhibited in an institution for women, where the Board of Trustees includes not one woman, and in a faculty of eight so-called professors of which only two were women, one being the physician and the other the professor of astronomy. The lady principal has no classes.

Page 191 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. 191 The experiences of these and other trustees who have had charge of other institutions for women may perhaps eventually lead to the conviction that the college plan of coequal instructors, with boards of trustees and teachers to include women of culture and experience in at least egualnumbers to the gentlemen, should be adopted. In the case of the Hartford Seminary, I left it with one hundred and fifty pupils, with a corps of well-trained teachers. The institution then passed to a gentleman who in one year left for a less laborious post. A second gentleman took it and it ran down in his hands.

Then a. lady took it and in a year was married. Another lady took it and in two years was married. Then another lady held it awhile, and it passed to a gentleman, under whom it ran down. Then I took it for a few months, and when its prosperity had returned resigned it to the present lady principal. In these many changes it was under the care of women that it prospered, while it declined whenever a man conducted it. Once at Ingham University, and once at Milwaukee Female College, the experiment failed, when, for a short time, the Trustees gave the chief

Page 192 view page image

192 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. control to a man, and prosperity returned with the return of a woman as responsible head. In another case, the mother of one of my pupils, being wealthy, sought tQ establish an institution like the Hartford Seminary. She and her family friends gave $30,000 for a building, furniture and apparatus. The trustees were only gentlemen, and their first selected principal left in a short time, being unequal to the duties required. The next lady principal married in about a year. Next came a lady who in two years lost her health. Then came a lady who in less than two years was married. Next came a gentleman who in about a year left it for an easier post. This is the history of the first years of its existence, and the succeeding history is very similar. Disappointed and irritated by these experiences, one of the trustees, who had given $io,ooo to the Institution, remarked that he wished the whole concern at the bottom of the sea. In another Western city the citizens erected a fine building for school and boarders, and the same discouraging change of principals ensued, and when I visited the place the

Page 193 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES. ETC. 193 school was ended, and the building used for other purposes. I could detail more than ten similar cases that came to my knowledge at the East or West. The evils consequent on such instability and changes in the higher institutions for women are fatal to any plan for training teachers properly. Most schools in small towns of the newer States will be taught by persons educated in their immediate vicinity. For though Normal Schools may multiply, they will not supply a tenth part of schools, especially in the poorer districts. So it must be our higher female seminaries all over the nation that will furnish most of the women teachers. The evils that have been set forth extend to all the ramifications of society. This is one reason why students in our colleges often cannot spell correctly or write a decent letter. This is one reason also why so many teachers of High Schools are so imperfectly qualified to teach the primary as well as the higher branches. And this is the reason why the education of the daughters even of the wealthy is so desultory, imperfect, and unsatisfactory. The only remedy for all this is that permanency, superior in

Page 194 view page image

194 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. structors, and division of labor secured by endowments in our colleges, which as yet has never been bestowed on institutions for women. As one of the managers of the A. W. E.

Association, which founded the Milwaukee Female College, I had many occasions to re gret that in the first Board of Trustees of that institution there were no practical women to supervise. This board consisted of men of business and professional men who were selected on account of their wealth, influence, and benevolence, as well as their intelligence and success in men’s professions. But they were gentlemen who had no training or experience to guide them in the many and varied responsibilities they had accepted, and that, too, without any hope of reward for time and care bestowed except the good to be achieved. And so when a building was to be erected, I received a drawing of the plan they adopted so devoid of architectural beauty that I devised another, aided by artists of culture and experience. I sent on a drawing of the front elevation and ground-plan, offering to pay any additional expense should the plan I sent be adopted, which was done. Not supposing

Page 195 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHIOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. 195 it necessary, I had devised no details as to the roof or interior finish. It seems the funds were wanting to secure a roof appropriate to the style of architecture, and so a flat and cheaper one was devised, involying leakage and future expenses to remedy it. Another story and large room were lost for want of an elevated roof, and an addition was required not long after for a calisthenic hall that should have been gained by a Mansard or French roof. Then again when our Association furnished funds to erect a building for the Health and Domestic departments, I sent on a plan devised by the aid of scientific artists, with the special aim of securing healthful ventilation. When the building was completed, I went on hoping-to organize the Health and Domestic departments. But the failure of all I had devised for this important purpose ended, on my part, all hope of carrying out the chief object of our Association in that city so long as practical women were excluded from the Board of Trustees. Should there ever be a time when such ladies have a controlling influence in that institution as trustees and faculty, my hope of its success would revive. The following extracts are from the lady

Page 196 view page image

196 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. who, as chief educational agent of the A.

W. E. Association, for nearly twenty years has borne the crushing burdens which all women suffer who act as Principals of an institution for the higher education of woman, and indicates the present status of’the Milwaukee Female College and its prospects: “MY DEAR Miss BEECHER: I see you keep on in faith and hope. I wish mine were equal to the struggle; but I am more worn in spirit than I hoped ever to be, and must give it up. I have tried faithfully to maintain the college plan of divided responsibilities, but with poor success. The best teacher we have had would not share responsibilities with me, and left last Spring with broken health. I hope her successor with some worthy associate will relieve me entirely of the care of the institution, for I am suffering of late the former trouble in my head. We have several good teachers but they think they can do better elsewhere. I see nothing better for the college than to lease it to some suitable gentleman, if any can be found willing to take the burden. The property so largely owing to the patronage of our Association is valued now at $50,000, and if proper endowments could be raised I should be willing to take the duties of one department or professorship. “I hope yet to do something for the cause that has interested us so long, but I must confess the conflict of life depresses me. How little we accomplish! How dark the world continues to be with ignorance and misery! I long, as of old, to help lift the cloud, and yet

Page 197 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. 197 yearn to retire from the conflict.

Alas, what is to come of it all?‘God so loved the world as to give his dear son to save it,’ and yet it is not saved. You will tell me how impatient I am, and, were we together, perhaps you would again read to me those soothing words, ‘Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God,”’ &c. This is the repetition of my own experience at Hartford, the best class of teachers ever losing health or leaving for better places, and all for want of what alone can secure permanence and the highest class of instructors. It seems that the gentlemen who designed to bestow endowments at Milwaukee and Dubuque, on account of financial losses, failed to do so. Owing to this, the institution at Dubuque was relinquished, and our Agents, Dr. and Mrs. Parsons, resigned at Milwaukee to help sustain the Ingham University, founded by two sisters as previously narrated, which at this writing has no endowments to support instructors. But, during twenty years, the Milwaukee College has been a fountain of good, sending out its educated mothers and teachers, and if this my disheartened colaborer could view the brighter side as I do, and see the future results of her labors in this life and in the world to come, she would re

Page 198 view page image

198 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. new her hope and faith. Certainly it is true that no institution, either at the East or West, has exceeded the one she has so wisely nurtured, both in its intellectual and moral advantages.

Perhaps a day will cpme when the fathers and husbands that have received so much aid in their early history will accomplish what was attempted by their friends at the East, and still remains incomplete. These details of past educational experiences are commended to the notice of those gentlemen Trustees who are holding funds for establishing institutions for women. The large fund of Miss Smith to be employed for a woman’s college at Northampton, Mass., is now controlled by gentlemen only; some of them-professors of a young men’s college, others civilians, theological professors, clergymen and business men. A Professor in Amherst College is appointed President, who will have the same duties to perform in organizing a Faculty as were given to the President of Vassar College, and, although our country abounds with women of culture and wisdom who have had great experience in organizing female institutions, as yet not one has been invited to become a member of the Board of

Page 199 view page image

TRUSTEES, SCHOOL COMMITTEES, ETC. 199 Trustees, or one of the future Faculty, to supervise the use of the large funds bestowed by a woman for the education of her own sex! Is not the time at hand when women of culture and experience will be, allowed at least equat control of contributions for the higher education of their own sex? Here it is proper to state that, in repeated instances where I have met ladies best qualified to take the position in a “Faculty” given to Presidents of our colleges, as presiding officer among equals, they have, without exception, joined in expressing their preference of a gentleman rather than one of their own sex. And many lady teachers do not favor the admission of women as supervisors of conmmon schools. The reason is obvious and natural. For in our country gentlemen of culture and benevolence accord a deferential courtesy toward our sex, which women are not trained to feel or manifest toward each other. Moreover that class of ladies who have borne the heavy responsibilities of the head of an institution, are often glad to relinquish the honor, in order to secure release from the burden and cares of such a position.

Page 200 view page image

CHA P TERR XI V. THE AMERICAN WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIA TION. LTHOUGH
the previous narrative is Chiefly a record of many failures as to permanent results, there are substantial reasons for anticipating ultimate success in the main features of what has been attempted by the above association. For there now is existing a wide-spread conviction that our country is at an alarming crisis, which shortly will decide whether our sacred institutions shall be sustained or perish. All sects and parties allow that our only safety depends on the virtue and intelligence of the coming generation, of whom women are to be the chief educators. And yet our census shows that illiterate women are now in excess of illiterate men to the number of over one million, and that this illiteracy increases faster among women than amiong men. Even Boston, the capital of our most forward educational State, shows twice as many illiterate

Page 201 view page image

WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 201 women as men, and other cities report equally or more humiliating statistics. In this emergency women are organizing all over the nation to secure to our sex educational, as well as legal and political equality. And the leaders in this effort are women of good sense, benevolence and intelligence, and such -as ordinarily accomplish what they undertake. Such women, I think, would not give the ballot without limitation to all women of this nation. They will rather rectify the mistake made so extensively in giving this power to all men, however ignorant or vicious. Let the franchise be given to women on condition that they are duly qualified by paying taxes and a certain measure of education,. and then every woman will have new stimulus to fit herself for these responsibilities. And one immediate result would be the increase of intelligent voters. At the same time we have unusual facilities for making so great a change with safety. For each of our States prescribes its own conditions of conferring the ballot, and thus the experience of a few will serve for guidance to the many. In seeking to decide what quality and amount of education should be the proper

Page 202 view page image

232 EDUCATIONAL, REMINISCENCES. condition for a woman to be allowed the ballot, we should consider whether the common college curriculum is needful to fit her for her distinctive duties as housekeeper, vwic, mother, and chief educator of;,the nation’s children. If not, what should be added or withdrawn? This is a practical question where conjecture must, in a measure, take the place of experiments. For as yet but few women have completed the common college course. But the following considerations should have due regard. As the general rule every true woman would prefer to be a wife, mother and housekeeper, could her ideal be fully met. But in multitudes of cases this can never be, and so, every woman should prepare herself not only for the ordinary duties of the family state, but also for some’profession to secure an ihzctpendelt livelihood. This being granted, every woman is entitled to etial advantages with those bestowed on man. In other words, it is the “right” of every woman to be provided with opportunities for gaining her distinctive and also a selfsupporting profession cyz.ial to what are given to men, and it is the duty of every parent and

Page 203 view page image

WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 203 of the S’ate also to secure such advantages t~ wl - omen. Our public school system, then, should be regulated by this principle. It should secure to every young girl first and chiefly the kind cf training which will best prepare her to become a housekeeper, wife, mother, and schoci teacher; and also ensure to her a self-su?,porting profession saZtted to her capacities ai;., tastes. For every one succeeds best in what best suits taste and ablility. I-Iow, then, could our public school system be so modified as to meet these requisitions? The following is offered for the consideration of the friends of popular education as what, perhaps, may aid in deciding the question. Our public schools are now so graded that the priz’ary branches might be taught in a much shorter time were the enormous accumulations of useless deaies in our school books greatly reduced. There is no use in filling the memory with what excites no interest as prac’ica/ly useful and therefore soon forgotten. Let this reduction be made to give room for a iractical training that would be interesting to all who should be trained for wvoman’s distinctive profession.

Page 204 view page image

204 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. As one method, let a model house be built for the scientific and practical training of young girls as future housekeepers, mothers, and teachers, and an endowment of $50o,ooo000
invested to support a lady Principal of Domestic Science, who shall choose her own Associate Principal. Then let a family be instituted, consisting of these two principals and ten of the most deserving pupils of the public schools, who shall receive gratuitous instruction in all the duties of the family state, both practical and scientific, and at the close receive diplomas certifying that they have been instructed in all that a woman needs to know should she become housekeeper, wife, mother, or school teacher. Then ten others might follow in rotation, and none be allowed to graduate till this course is completed, either at home or at school. This might be done so that this course of domestic education could be combined with intervals for reading the standard works of English literature, and thus cultivating a taste for a higher course of reading than is now prevalent. Such an establishment might become a popular feature not only of the public school system, but be widely imitated

Page 205 view page image

WOMAN S EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 205 in women’s colleges and private schools, so that as the result every young girl will, either at home or in such an establishment, be properly trained for her future duties. During such a course the lady Principal could decide which of those under her care were of a class that would be benefited by a more extensive literary or scientific course, and such could ere long find ready admission to men’s colleges or professional schools. But these would probably be a small minority, while the majority would prefer more quiet and less ambitious employments. In St. Louis a university is now flourishing which is formed by uniting a college, a polytechnic school, a female seminary, and the public schools. Would not the “co-education” of the sexes and ecanomy be promoted by a similar method in other cities? Is it just or generous for men in our colleges and professional schools to teach only one, * two, or at most three hours a day, while women are required to teach four, five, and six hours? Could not the duties of the weaker sex be wisely diminished by increasing those of the stronger? It was with the hope of raising funds for

Page 206 view page image

206 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. endowing a womrhan’s professional schocl, that I prepared my several works on Domestic Economy and Domestic Science, now all included in the volume entitled the Haousekeeper and Healthkeeper,,, and also a smaller work on Phzysiology and Calistlienics.

I made such a contract with my generous publishers, the Harpers, that I can take at costall I wish for my agents to sell, and, after. certain number are sold, have the right to cc  trol all future sales by a new contract. The:) two works embrace all that is of permanent value in my other works on Domestic Science, and are prepared with questions and illustrations to serve as a textbook for schools, and all profits are consecrated to this object. As in this and all my efforts for the education of my sex, I have repeatedly received the aid of generous friends both at the East and West, it is proper to state some of my financial experiences as a defense of my sometimes questioned ability and discretion in this particular, where every woman ought to excel. In early life a bequest of $2,000 for my use was invested in what was then regarded the safest and most prosperous bank in New England. A few years after, this bank failed,

Page 207 view page image

WOMAN S EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 207 and all was lost. When I had completed my first edition of Domestic Economy, it was placed in the Massachusetts School Library, and for this I was required to pay more than I received to a gentleman employed to prepare an index. Soon after the publishing house failed, and by some strange chicanery I could recover my right to the book only by paying five hundred dollars. Two other books published in New England and one in New York, were entirely lost as to any personal profits by the death or failure of the publishers. In another case, having recovered 82,5oo00 of a railroad company for injuries received, I requested a business gentleman to place it so that I could use it in three months. He gave me the note of an honest man, secured by twice the amount of stock in the Boston Grocers’ Bank, and in a few months the bank failed, and the honest man failed, and I lost all but $500. In another case, an agent of mine, highly recommended as both honest and capable, took a piano I had ordered and several hundred dollars of books, and departed to parts unknown and has not been heard of since. In another case $I,500 paid to me for literary and other

Page 208 view page image

208 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. services was placed temporarily with a banker who suddenly died insolvent, and all was lost. These and several other similar experiences have in a few cases caused delay in meeting engagements. But I have kept regular accounts, open to all who care to examine them, which show that I have always supported my own agency, and that of several of my associates, without using any funds but my own earnings, and have paid out of the funds committed to my discretion all I have received, and for the purpose for which they were contributed. At the same time it has led me to refuse in repeated instances, liberal offers of aid, because involving responsibilities and risks beyond my strength to bear. Be it understood, however, that in all of these transactions I was guided by the counsels of the best business men. Where I was in error it was by following “good advice.”

Page 209 view page image

CHAPTER XV. AMERICAN WOMEN: WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? [The following pages are the first portions of the anonymous work of mine referred to in a previous chapter. Its remarkable relevancy to the present political and moral condition of our country will appear at the close of the extract.] T
is constantly repeated that intellteizcc and virtue are indispensable to t4Fe,afety of a democratic government like ours, where the peo~pe hold all the power. You hear it said, too, that our country is in great peril from the want of this intelligence and virtue. But these words make a faint impression, and it is the object of what follows to convey these truths more vividly to your minds’. This will be attempted, by presenting some events, in a country where a government similar to our own was undertaken, by a people destitute of that intelligence and virtue so indispensable; and then it will be shown that similar dangers are impending over our own

Page 210 view page image

210 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. country. The grand point to be illustrated is, that a people without education have not intelligence enough to know what measures will secure safety and prosperity, nor virtue enough to pursue even what they know to be right, so that, when possessed of power, they will adopt ruinous measures, be excited by base passions, and be governed by wicked and cruel men. Look, then, at France, during that awful period called thize Reign of Terror. First, observe the process by which the power passed into the hands of the people. An extravagant king, a selfish aristocracy, an exacting priesthood, had absorbed all the wealth, honor, and power, until the people were ground to the dust. All offices of trust and emolument were in the hands of the privileged few, all laws made for their benefit, all monopolies held for their profit, while the common people were condemned to heavy toils, with returns not sufficient to supply the necessities of life, so that, in some districts, famine began to stalk through the land. Speedily the press began to unfold these wrongs, and at the same time, Lafayette and his brave associates returned from our shores,

Page 211 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. and spread all over the nation enthusiastic accounts of happy America, where the people govern themselves, unoppressed by monopoly, or king, or noble, or priest. The press teems with exciting pages, and orators inflame the public mind to a tempest of enthusiasm. The court and the aristocratic party cower before the storm; and ere long, the eleven hundred representatives of the people are seen marching, in solemn pomp, through the streets of the capital, while the whole land rings with acclamations of joy. They take their seats, on an equality with nobles and king, and proceed to form a constitution, securing the rights of the people. It is adopted, and sworn to, by the whole nation, with transports and songs, while they vainly imagine that all their troubles are at an end. But the representatives, chosen by the people, had not the wisdom requisite for such arduous duties as were committed to them, nor had the people themselves the intelligence and virtue indispensable for such a change. Men of integrity and ability were not selected for the new offices created. Fraud, peculation, rapine, and profusion abounded. Everything went wrong, and soon the country was more 211’.

Page 212 view page image

212 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. distressed than ever. “What is the cause of this?” the people demand of their representa tives. “It is the aristocrats,” is the reply; “it is the king; it is the nobles; it is the clergy. They oppose and thwart all our measures; they will not allow our new Constitution to work, and therefore it is that you suffer.” And so the people are filled with rage at those whom they suppose to be the cause of their disappointment and sufferings. The clergy first met the storm.

“These bishops and priests, with their vast estates, and splendid mansions, and rich incomes-they beggar the peqple, that they may riot on the spoil.” And so the populace rage and thunder around the national Hall of Legislation till they carry their point, and laws are passed confiscating the property of the clergy, and driving them to exile or death. Their vast estates pass into the control of the National Legislature, and for a time, abundance and profusion reign. The people have bread, and the office-seekers gain immense spoils. But no wisdom or honesty is found to administer these millions for the good of the people.

In a short time, all is gone; distress again lashes the people to madness, and again they demand why they

Page 213 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. do not gain the promised plenty and prosperity.

“It is the aristocrats,” is the reply; “it is the king; it is the nobles; it is the rich men. They oppose all our measures, therefore nothing succeeds, and the people are distressed.” Next, the nobles meet the storm.

“They are traitors; they are enemies of the people; they are plotting against our liberties; they are living in palaces, and rolling in splendid carriages from the hard earnings of the poor.” The populace rage against them all over the land. They besiege the House of Representatives; they beseech-they threaten. At last they carry their point; the estates of the nobles are seized; they are declared traitors, and doomed to banishment or death. Again millions are placed at the control of the people’s agents. It is calculated that by this and former confiscations, more than a thousand millions of dollars were seized for the use of the people. Again fraud, peculation, profusion, and mismanagement abound, till all this incomprehensible treasure vanishes away. Meantime, all the laws have’ been altered; all the property has passed from its wonted owners to new hands; the wealthy, educated, 213 . a e”. ~ * I,

Page 214 view page image

214 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. and noble are down; the poor, the ignorant, the base hold the offices, wealth, and power. Everything is mismanaged.

Everything goes wrong. The people grow distracted with their sufferings, and again demand the cause. “It is the king; it is his extravagant Austrian queen, who rules him and his court. They thwart all our measures.

They are sending to brother kings for soldiers to crush our liberties.

They are gathering armies on our borders to overwhelm us.” Next, the helpless king and his family become the mark for popular rage. Every indignity and insult was inflicted-and borne with a patient fortitude that extorted admiration, till finally the king is first led forth to a bloody death; next the queen is sacrificed; next the virtuous sister of the king; and, last, the little dauphin is barbarously murdered. Still misery rules through the nation. The friends of the king and former government, and all the peaceable citizens and supporters of order, are called aristocrats, and every art devised to render them objects of fear, suspicion, and hatred, especially such of them as hold property to tempt the cupidity of the people. Through the whole land two parties I:. “, I,’

Page 215 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. exist; one the distressed, bewildered, exasperated people, raging for their rights, and driven to madness by the fancied opposition of aristocrats; the other a trembling, cowering minority, suffering insult, and fear, and robbery, and often a cruel death. And now priests and nobles and king and queen are all gone, and yet the people are more distressed than ever before. Amid these scenes of violence, confusion and misrule, confidence has ceased, commerce has furled the sail, trade has closed the door, manufactures ceased their din, and agriculture forsaken the plough. There is no money, no credit, no confidence, no employment, no bread. Famine, and pestilence,‘and grief, and rage, and despair brood over the land. Again the people cry to their representatives, “Why do you not give us the promised prosperity and plenty? We have nothing to eat, nothing to wear; our business and trades are at an end. The nations around us are gathering to devour us, and what is the cause of all these woes?” It is the Girondists,” is the reply; “it is this party among the people’s representatives. They are traitors; they have been bribed; 215

Page 216 view page image

216 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. they have joined with foreign aristocrats and kings. They interrupt all our measures, and they are the cause of all your sufferings.” And now the people turn their rage upon the most intelligent and well-meaning portion of their representatives, who have been striving to stem the worst excesses of those who yield entirely to the dictation of the mob. After a period of storms and threats and violence, at length a majority is gained against them, and a decree is passed condemning a large portion of the National Legislature as traitors, while their leaders are borne forth by the exulting mob to a bloody death.

Still the distress of the people is unrelieved, and again they clamour for the cause. “It is the party opposed to us,” say the Jacobins, with Robespierre at their head; “they are the traitors; they will not adopt the measures which will save the people from these ills.” “Cut them down!”

cries the populace; and again another portion of the people’s representatives are led forth to death. And now Robespierre, the leader of the lowest mob of all, is supreme dictator, and all power is lodged with this coldest-blooded ruffian that ever doomed his fellow beings to a

Page 217 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. violent death. This was the Reign of Terror, when the mob had gained complete mastery, and this man, its advocate and organ, administered its awful energies. Look, then, for a moment at the picture. But the horrors of this period are so incredible, the atrocities so monstrous, that the tale will be regarded with distrust, without some previous indication of the causes which led to such results. Let it be remembered, then, that this whole revolutionary movement was, in fact, a war of the common people upon the classes above them. Let it be remembered, too, that the French people, by the press, and by emissaries all over Europe, had invoked the lower classes of all nations to make common cause with them. “War to the palace, and peace to the cottage,” was their watchword. Every throne began to shake, and every person of rank, talents and wealth felt his own safety involved in the contest. It was thus that the revolutionary leaders felt that they were contending for their lives against the whole wealth, aristocracy, and monarchial power of Europe. In France itself, individual ambition, hate, envy, or vengeance added fearful power to this 217

Page 218 view page image

218 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. war of contending classes. Not only every leader, but every individual found in the opposing party some rival to displace, or some private grudge to revenge, while ten thousand aspirants for office demanded sacrifices, in order to secure vacated places. At last the struggle became so embittered and desperate, that each man looked out only for himself. Friend gave up friend to save his own life, or to secure political advancement, till confidence between man and man perished, and society became a mass of warring elements, excited by every dreadful passion. Few men are deliberately cruel from the mere love of cruelty.

Thousands, under the influence of fear, revenge, ambition, or hate, become selfish, reckless, and cruel. When too, in conflicts where men feel that by the hands of opponents they have lost property, home, honor, and country; when they have seen their dearest friends slaughtered or starved, then, when the hour of retaliation arrives, pity and sympathy are dead, and every baleful passion rages. Thus almost every man in the conflict had suffered; if a democrat, from those above him; if an aristocrat, from those below him.

Page 219 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. Meantime, religion-that powerful principle in humanizing and restraining bad passionshad well-nigh taken her flight. The war upon the clergy at length turned to a war upon the religion they represented, till atheism became the prevailing principle of the nation.

By a public act, the leaders of the people declared their determination “to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as the monarchs of the earth.”

For this end the apostate clergy, put in the places of those exiled, were induced to come before the bar of the National Legislature and publicly abjure Christianity, and declare that “no other national religion was now required but liberty, equality, and morality.” On this occasion, crowds of drunken artisans appeared before the bar of the house, trampling under foot the cross, the sacramental vases, and other emblems of religious faith. A vile woman, dressed as the Goddess of Reason, was publicly embraced by the presiding officer of the National Legislature, and conducted by him to a magnificent car, and followed by immense crowds to the grand Cathedral of Notre Dame, where she was seated on an altar, and there received the 219

Page 220 view page image

220 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. worship of the multitudes. The Sabbath, by a national decree, was abolished; the Bible was burned publicly by the executioner; and on the grave-yards was inscribed “Death is an eternal sleep!” At Lyons, a similar scene”’ was enacted, where a fete in honor of Liberty was celebrated. The churches were all closed, the Decade, or Sabbath of Reason, proclaimed, and an image of a vile character was carried in procession, followed by vast crowds shouting, “Down with the aristocrats! Long life to the guillotine!” After the image came an ass, bearing the cross, the Bible, and the communion service; and these were led to an altar, where a fire was lighted, the cross and Bible burned, the communion bread trampled under foot, and the ass made to drink out of the communion cup. Wherever democracy reigned, the services of religion were interrupted, the burial service vanished, baptisms ceased, the sick and dying were unconsoled by religion, while every species of vice, obscenity, and licentiousness was practiced without concealment or control. The establishments for charity, the hospitals, and all humane institutions were swept away, and their funds

Page 221 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. seized by the agents of the people. Even flthe sepulchres of the dead were upturned. The noble, the wise, and the ancient, the barons of feudal ages, the heroes of the Crusades, the military chieftains, the ancient kings, resting in long-hallowed tombs, the mightiest monarchs of the nation, the “chief ones of the earth,” were moved from their rest, and rose to meet the coming of this awful day, while the treasures of their tombs were rifled by vulgar hands, and their very skulls kicked around as footballs for sport. Meantime the sovereigns of Europe were making preparations to meet this flood of democratic lava, which threatened to overflow every surrounding land. Vast armies began to gather on every side, and avenging navies hovered along the shores. This added the fervour of patriotic devotion to the mania of democracy. “Ye sons of France! awake to glory! Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!

Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary; Behold their tears, and hear their cries! Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding, With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, Affright and desolate our land, While Peace and Liberty lie bleedng? 221 II

Page 222 view page image

222 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. To arms! to arms! ye brave! The avenging sword unsheath! March on! march on! to victory or death!” These inspiring sentiments, sung in the thrilling notes of the Marseilles Hymn, were echoed from one end of the land to the other, awakening a whirlwind of enthusiasm. The wants of thousands thrown out of employ, joined with the excitement of patriotism, raised an army unparalleled in numbers. It is calculated that, at one time, one million two hundred thousand Frenchmen were thus enrolled, and at the command of the National Legislature; while the millions of property, not otherwise squandered, were employed to clothe, feed, and equip this incomprehensible multitude. All Fra e was bristling like an armed field; while every mandate of government, backed as it was by such a military force, was utterly resistless. Thus it was that the Reign of Terror was so silent, awful, and hopeless. Behold, then, through the terror-stricken and miserable land, the national troops employed in arresting every person suspected of favoring aristocracy, or conspicuous as the holder of wealth, or object of hate, envy, or

Page 223 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. suspicion to all in the possession of power.

Behold the prisons of the capital, of the provincial cities, and of the country villages, crammed to overflowing with the rich, the noble, and the learned. No regard was paid to station, age, or sex. Gray hairs and blooming childhood, stern warriors and beautiful maidens, coarse laborers and noble matrons, were huddled together into the damps, and filth, and darkness of a common dungeon, while the guillotine daily toiled in its bloody work of death. Whenever a fresh supply of funds was demanded for the national service, a new alarm of invasion or of counter-revolution was spread, and then followed new arrests of those suspected, or of those who held any species of wealth. In disposing of captives to make room for new supplies, some were poniarded in prison, some shot, and some guillotined.

At last, it was found needful to adopt a more summary method, and the National Legislature decreed that the land must be cleared of traitors and aristocrats, not by trial and single execution, but by a slaughter of masses. A corps was formed of the most determined and bloodthirsty, and sent all over the land to execute 223

Page 224 view page image

224 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. this mandate. In carrying out this unparalleled system of cold-blooded murder, various modes were adopted.

One was called the Republican Baaptisrn, by which men, women, and children were placed in a vessel with a trap-door in the bottom, and carried out into the midst of the waves; then the trap-door was opened, and the crew, getting into a boat, left their victims to perish. Another method was called the Republican Marriage. By this, two of the opposite sex, generally an old person and a young one, were bereft of all clothing, then tied together, and, after being tortured a while, thrown into the waves.

Another mode was called the maitraillade or fusillade. Sixty, or more, captives were bound, and ranged in two files along a deep ditch dug for the purpose. At the two extremities of each file, were placed cannons loaded with grapeshot, and, at a given signal, these were discharged on this mass of human beings. But a few were entirely killed at the first discharge. Wounded and mutilated, they fell in heaps, or crawled forth, and, with piercing shrieks, entreated the soldiers to end their sufferings with death, Three successive discharges did not accomplish the work, which was finally ended by the swords

Page 225 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. of the soldiery. Next day, the same scene was renewed on a larger scale, more than two hundred prisoners being thus destroyed. This was repeated day after day; while, on one occasion, the commanding officer rose from a carouse, and with thirty Jacobins and twenty courtesans, went out to enjoy a view of the horrid scene. At Toulon the mitraillades were repeated, till at least eight hundred were thus slaughtered in a population of less than ten thousand. In Lyons, during only five months, six thousand persons suffered death, and among these were a great portion of the noblest and most virtuous citizens. At Toulon, one of the victims was an old man of eighty-four, and his only crime was the possession of eighty thousand pounds, of which he offered all but a mere trifle to escape so shocking a death, but in vain. Bonaparte, who saw these horrors, says: “When I beheld this poor old man executed, I felt as if the end of the world was at hand.” At Nantes, five hundred children, of both sexes, the oldest not fourteen, were led out to be shot. Never before was beheld so piteous a sight! The stature of the little ones was so 225

Page 226 view page image

226 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. low that the balls passed over their heads, and, shrieking with terror, they burst their bonds, and rushing to their murderers, they implored for pity and life. But in vain; the sabre finished the dreadful wqrk, and these babes were slaughtered at their feet. At another time, a large body of women, most of them with young children, were carried out into the Loire, and while the unconscious little ones were smiling and caressing their distressed mothers, these mothers were bereft of all clothing and thrown with their infants into the waves. At another time, three hundred young girls were drowned in one night at Nantes, where, for some months, every night hundreds of persons were carried forth and thrown into the river, while their shrieks awoke the inhabitants and froze every heart with terror. In this city, in a single month, either by hunger, the diseases of prison, or violence, fifteen thousand persons perished, and more than double that number during the Reign of Terror. In the prisons not less dreadful sufferings were endured. In these foul and gloomy abodes the cells were dark, humid, and filthy; the straw, their only beds, became so putrid -4

Page 227 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. that the stench was horrible, while enormous rats and every species of vermin preyed on the wretched inmates. In such dens as these were gathered the rank, the beauty, the talents, and the wealth of Paris, and the chief cities of the land. Here, too, degraded turnkeys, attended by fierce dogs, domineered over their victims, while on one side were threats, oaths, obscenity, and insult, and on the other were vain arguments, useless supplications, and bitter tears. Every night the wheels of the rolling car were heard, coming to carry another band of victims to their doom. Then the bars of the windows and the wickets of the doors were crowded by anxious listeners, to learn whether their own names were called, or to see their friends led out to death. Those summoned bade a hasty farewell to their friends. The husband left the arms of his frantic wife, the father was torn from his weeping children, the brother and sister, the neighbor and friend, parted and went forth to die, while survivors, picturing the last agonies of those they loved, or waiting their own fate, suffered a living death, till again the roll of the approaching car renewed the universal agony. 227

Page 228 view page image

228 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. To such a degree did this protracted torture prey upon the mind that many became reckless of life, and many longed for death as a relief. In many cases women died of terror when their cell door was opened, supposing their hour of doom was come. The prison floors were often covered with infants, distressed by hunger or in the agonies of death. One evening three hundred infants were in one prison; the next morning all were drowned! When the citizens once remonstrated at this useless cruelty, the reply was, ‘ They are all young aristocratic vipers-let them be stifled!” Such accumulated horrors annihilated the sympathies and charities of life. Calamity rendered every man suspicious. Those passing in the streets feared to address their nearest friends. As wealth was a mark for ruin, all put on coarse or squalid raiment. Abroad, no symptom of animation was seen, except when prisoners were led forth to slaughter, and then the humane fled and the hard-hearted rushed forward to look upon the agonies of death. In the family circle all was fear and distrust. The sound of a footstep, a voice

Page 229 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. in the street, a knock at the door, sent pale ness to the cheek. Night brought little re pose, and in the morning all eyed each other distrustfully, as if traitors were lurking there. But there is a limit to the power of mental suffering; and one of the saddest features of this awful period was the torpid apathy which settled on the public mind, so that, eventually, the theaters, which had been forsaken, began to be thronged, and the multitude relieved themselves by farces and jokes, unconcerned whether it was twenty or a hundred of their fellow-citizens who were led forth to die. Learning and talent were as fatal to their possessors as rankand wealth. The son of Buffon the naturalist, the daughter of the eloquent-Vernay, Roucher the poet, and even the illustrious Lavoisier, in the midst of his philosophical experiments, were cut down. A few more weeks of slaughter would have swept off all the literary talent of France. During the revolutionary period it is calculated that not less than two hundred thousand persons suffered imprisonment besides those who were put to death, of whiom the following list is furnished by the Republicans themselves: 229

Page 230 view page image

230 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. Twelve hundred and seventy-eight nobles, seven hundred and fifty women of rank, fourteen hundred of the clergy, and thirteen thousand persons not noble, perished by the guillotine under decrees of the tribunals of the people. To this add the victims at Nantes, which are arranged in this mournful catalogue: Children shot’……

Children drowned… Women shot……. Women drownod….. Priests shot and drowned. Nobles drowned…… Artisans drowned… The whole number destroyed at Nantes, of which the above is a portion only, was thirtytwo thousand. To these add those slaughtered in the wars of La Vendee, viz., nine hundred thousand men, fifteen thousand women, and twenty-two thousand children. To this add the victims at Lyons, numbering thirty-one thousand.

To this, add those who are recorded thus: “women who died of grief, or premature childbirth, three thousand seven hundred;” and we have ~ 500 I 1,5OO . 264 ~ 500 . 760 I5,400 * 5)300

Page 231 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. a sum-total of one mnillion tuienty-two thousand human beings destroyed by violence. How many should be added, as those who died of prison sufferings, or from the pangs and privations of exile, or from famine and from pestilence consequent on this state of anarchy and violence, who can enumerate? At some periods, such was the awful slaughter that the rivers were discolored with blood. In Paris, a vast aqueduct was dug to carry off the gore to the Seine, and four men employed in conducting it to this reservoir. In the river Loire, the corpses accumulated so that birds of prey hovered all along its banks, the waters became infected, and the fishes so poisonous that the magistrates of Nantes forbade the fishermen to take them. Thus, in the language of another, “France became a kind of suburb of the world of perdition.

Surrounding nations were lost in amazement as they beheld the scene. It seemed a prelude to the funeral of this great world, a stall of death, a den into which thousands daily entered and none were. seen to return.

Between ninety and a hundred of the leaders in this mighty work of death fell by the hand of violence. Enemies to all men, they were 231

Page 232 view page image

232 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. of course enemies to each other. Butchers of the human race, they soon whetted the knife for each other’s throats; and the same Almighty Being who rules the universe, whose existence they had denied by a solemn act of legislation, whose perfections they had made the butt of public scorn, whose Son they had crucified afresh, and whose Word they had burned by the hands of a common hangman, swept them all, by the hand of violence, into an untimely grave. The tale made every ear that heard it tingle, and every heart chill with horror. It was, in the language of Ossian,‘the song of death.’ It was like the reign of the plague in a populous city. Knell tolled upon knell, hearse followed hearse, coffin rumbled after coffin, without a mourner to shed a tear, or a solitary attendant to mark the place of the grave.‘From one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, the world went forth and looked upon the carcasses of the men who transgressed against God, and they were an abhorring unto all flesh.’” Such, my countrywomen, are the scenes which have been enacted in our own age, in a land calling itself Christian, and boasting itself as at the head of civilization and refine

Page 233 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. ment. Do you say that such cruelty and bloodthirsty rage can never appear among us; that our countrymen can never be so deluded by falsehood and blinded by passion? Look, then, at scenes which have already occurred in our land. Look at Baltimore: it is night, and within one of its prisons are shut up some of its most excellent and respected citizens. They dared to use the rights of freemen, and express their opinions, and oppose the measures of the majority; and for this, a fierce multitude is raging around those walls, demanding their blood. They force the doors, and, with murderous weapons, reach the room containing their victims. Some friendly hand extinguishes the lights, and in the protecting darkness they seek to escape. Some succeed; others are recognized, and seized, and stabbed, and trampled on, and dragged around in murderous fury. One of the noblest of these victims, apparently dead, is seized by some pitying neighbor, under the pretense of cruelty, and thrown into the river and carried over a fall. There he is drawn forth and restored to consciousness; and. there, too, it is discovered, that by Americans, by the hands of his fellow-citizens, his body has been stuck 23g’

Page 234 view page image

234 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. with scores of pins, deep pilunged into his flesh! Look, again, at the Southwest, and see gamblers swinging uncondemned from a gallows, and among them a harmless man, whom the fury of the mob hung up without time for judge or jury to detect his innocence.

See, on the banks of the Mississippi, fires blazing, and American citizens roasted alive by their fellow-citizens! See, even in New England, the boasted land of law and steady habits, a raging mob besets a house filled with women and young children. They set fire to it, and the helpless inmates are driven forth by the flames to the sole protection of darkness and the pitiless ruffians. See, in Cincinnati, the poor blacks driven from their homes, insulted, beaten, pillaged, seeking refuge in prisons and private houses, and for days kept in constant terror and peril. See, in Philadelphia, one class of citizens arrayed in arms against another, both excited to the highest pitch of rage, both thirsting for each other’s blood, while the civil authority can prevent universal pillage, misrule, and murder, only by volleys that shoot down neighbors, brothers, and friends.

Page 235 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. See in New York city, an infuriated mob attacking the helpless negroes, and their orphan asylum in flames! What, then, has saved our country from those wide-sweeping horrors that desolated France? Why is it that, in the excitements of embargoes, and banks, and slavery, and abolition, and foreign immigration, the besom of destruction has not swept over the land? It is because there has been such a large body of educated citizens, who have had intelligence enough to understand how to administer the affairs of state, and a proper sense of the necessity of sustaining law and order; who have had moral principle enough to subdue their own passions, and to use their influence to control the excited minds of others. Change our large body of moral, intelligent, and religious people to the ignorant population of France, and the horrors of the Reign of Terror would be before our eyes. Nothing can preserve this nation from such scenes but perpetuating this preponderance of intelligence and virtue. This is our only.safeguard. What, then, are our prospects in this respect? Look at the monitions recorded in our census.

Let it be first conceded, that 235

Page 236 view page image

236 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. the fact that a man cannot read and write is not, in itself, proof that he is not intelligent and virtuous. Many, in our country, who do not read, by intercourse with men and things, by the discussionr of religion and politics, and by the care of their affairs, gain much knowledge and mental discipline. Still, a person who cannot read a word in a newspaper, nor a line in his Bible, and who has so little value for knowledge as to remain thus incapacitated, as a general fact, is in the lowest grade of stupidity and mental darkness. So that the number who cannot read and write is, perhaps, the surest exponent of the intellectual and moral state of a community. For though this list may embrace many intelligent and virtuous persons, on the other hand, there are probably as many, or more, of those classed as able to read and write, who never have used this power, and who are among the most stupid and degraded of our race. These preceding pages were written in I845, and now what are the returns of our last census, of i870? Instead of the decrease of ignorance in our nation, we find its increase, and what to our sex is specially humil

Page 237 view page image

ADDRESS TO AMERICAN WOMEN. iating, this increase of ignorance is greater among women than among men. For of our present population (in I870), numbering thirty-eight and a-half millions, seventeeen per cent. of the adult males cannot read, and twenty-three per cent. of adult women, or nearly one-fourth of all our sex, are in the same condition. 237

Page 238 view page image

CHAPTER XVI.. QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. HE preceding pages show how much I have been aided and guided by the counsels and influence of experienced housekeepers, mothers, and teachers. I may here add that I cannot recall an instance in which I have, either in general aims or specific measures, gone contrary to their judgment, while in several instances I have relinquished cherished views and efforts in compliance with their counsels. In what follows will be presented some untried methods for the consideration and discussion of those who are leaders in educational operations, but especially of the intelligent and benevolent women of my country. I. As preliminary, the following principles and facts are assumed, as those in which it is probable all will agree. It is the fundamental principle, both of our national government and of the Christian religion, that all men, as

Page 239 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. children of one Father, are created free and equal, and are equally entitled to whatever will secure their own best good and the best good of the commonwealth, these being one and the same.

On this primary principle our educational institutions must be framed. But at the same time the fact must be recognized that there are various grades of mind, some lower and some higher, demanding modes of training and spheres of action, some on one plane and some on another. It is also a fact that individual minds of equal grades are diversely organized, certain mental faculties being powerful and prominent in some and deficient in others. In view of these facts, the leading aim of educational institutions should be to trazn each mind for the higher or lower sphere for which its natural tastes and abilities are best adapted, and also to develop equally every bodily and mental faculty so as to secure a well-balanced mind in a healthful body. For the training suited to a mind with certain faculties dormant or deficient would be unsuitable for another mind in which these same faculties were powerful and prominent. There are also important facts in our circumstances as a nation which demand atten 239

Page 240 view page image

EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. tion in framing our educational institutions.

Our national census of 1872-3 reveals these startling facts: that there are over one million more illiterate women than men, that il-‘ literacy increases faster among women than among men, that the increase of children is far greater among the ignorant classes than among those most educated, that it is the illiterate who care least for the proper education of their children, that vice and poverty are nearly in tL-he same ratio as illiteracy, and that immigration, both on the Atlantic and Pacific shores, is chiefly from the more ignorant classes and is increasing every year.

The conseqences of the rule of ignorant majorities in a republic have been mournfully illustrated in France and in some of our Southern States. These principles and facts must be our guide in judging of our present systems of education, and of the changes and improvements needed. It is certain that the great majority of this nation will consist of the working classes, and that only a small portion of them will gain that style of education provided in our colleges and universities. And yet both the state, civil and private benefactions 240

Page 241 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. have been profusely bestowed on these institu tions. This results from a fact already recog nized, that there are higher and lower grades of mind demanding diverse spheres, diverse modes of education, and divere appliances and apparatus. There are higher grades of mind, fitted by superior natural abilities to become civil rulers, learned investigators, scientific discoverers and useful inventors. For such our ?dviz)ersities should be still more liberally endowed, and every facility provided to excite to effort and to insure success. And it should be one of the aims of our public school system to discover those who are fitted by superior talents for such positions, and secure to them such appropriate advantages. But is it not the case that institutions for the training of these higher grades of mind have been unduly multiplied, while appropriate advantages for the humbler classes have been neglected, especially in the proper training of woman? And are not the methods of our public high schools unduly modeled after the college and university plan?

II. The most important and influential of all our educational institutions is that of the 241

Page 242 view page image

242 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. family, in which the housekeeper and mother is the chief minister, with her kitchen, nursery and school assistants. In preyious pages it has been shown how multiplied and complicated are the duties of a wbman as chief minister of the family state, and how imperfect are existing methods of training her for these duties. Without discussing the relative intellectual abilities of the two sexes, all will allow that the training of the human mind in early life is unsurpassed in difficulty and importance, and that this is committed to woman more extensively than to man. In this view of the case, no educational question is of such vital importance as the appropriate education of woman for the Duties of the Family State. III. In offering suggestions on these topics, some additional details - of personal history will be introduced to illustrate the importance of certain principles of mind which have been greatly neglected both in family and school education. The first of these principles is the influence of excited interest to gain some practical good in quickening intellectual vigor, and in securing accurate perceptions and consequent

Page 243 view page image

QUERIES AiD SUGGESTIONS. long retention of memory. This will be illustrated by my own personal history before and after the period of school education. At the age of twenty, al my knowledge of geography, grammar and arithmetic had been gained without the interest that would have attended a perception of their practical use, and so nearly all had faded from memory. But the multiplied duties of a housekeeper and mother, which were shared by me as eldest daughter, awakened the highest interest, as the motives of love, duty and practical usefulness called into vigorous exercise every intellectual faculty. Afterwards, by religious motives and the necessity of selfsupport by teaching, I was again incited to renewed and more successful efforts at acquiring knowledge from books, in view of a practical good to be gained, while my instructors were exact and thorough. Studying and teaching at the same time, I was only a little in advance of my classes of bright and active minds, excited by entering with me into fields of knowledge hitherto barred from our sex. Thus simultaneously as teacher and pupil I learned the importance of a practical aim and also the value of frequent 243 I

Page 244 view page image

244 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. repetition in both acquiring and retaining knowledge. After establishing my school, I found myself on the threshold of further studies. In Latin, French and mathematics I took only a short course that would aid me for the practical end of preparing and supervising my teachers and judging of their methods with their classes.

This being attained, my interest and attention were turned to other p)ractical matters. When obliged to teach classes in mental philosophy and to give daily instruction in the Bible, my interest was again aroused by the supremest motives, in the education of immortal minds, most of them to become future mothers and teachers. in tfiis department I soon was made to realize the unpractical character of all existing textbooks on mental science, and this led to the preparation of the work already noticed, which was introduced into their classes, as superior to any other, by the Professors of Mental Philosophy in the leading universities of Ohio and Virginia, and was sought for by other teachers in this branch. The following abridgement of the preface

Page 245 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. to this work gives an outline of its con tents: “When a true philosopher examines a new and curious contrivance, these are his natural and appropriate inquiries: For what end or purpose was it contrived? Is it in perfect order, so as to,.work according to the design of its author? If disordered, how is it to be rectified? Who is its author, and has he made any revelation of the end he designed and of the right method to secure this end? Can the character and intention of the author be discovered by the nature of this contrivance? Now, the human mind is the most curious and wonderful of all contrivances, and one would suppose that all true philosophers would seek the answers to these questions as the prominent aim of their writings. But instead of this we find most works on mental philosophy to consist chiefly-of descriptions, names and classification of the mental faculties, of discussions as to the propriety of these names and classification, of a history of discussions and of various abstract theories and views that have no practical issues.

On the contrary, in this work, the attempt is made to remedy these deficiencies. It commences with a description of the various faculties of the human mind, using the names and classification most common in popular use, and those which the common people understand and employ. Then follows an tccount of the sources of human knowledge, including all gained by personal experience, by human testimony and by revelations from the Creator, including the evidences sustaining such revelations. Next is set forth the object or end for which mind is created, as learned alike by reason and revelation. Then is presented 245

Page 246 view page image

2m6 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. the evidence of the disordered action of mind and its consequences in this and in the future life; then the true mode of rectifying this disordered action, as made known both by reason and revelation; and finally the right mode of training the human mind according to its laws and the teachings of its Creator.” This is a brief outline of a work which excited the highest interest among the active and earnest young minds under my care as they perceived its practical uses-an interest rarely found to be excited by the abstract and unpractical textbooks used in most of our literary institutions, which, for this reason, did not interest either my pupils or myself. It was owing to this fact that one professor described this work as “possessing in no ordinary degree the best of all qualities in a textbook incentives to izzvestigation “- and as “being fearlessly original and felicitously correct;” while another professor sought it as “a work more suitable to this country than any other he had met.” IV. In view of those experiences in attempts to train the human mind to right action and habits, it is important to consider some facts in the history of other nations and countries. At the present time the wives and mothers of our country are attempting to meet the in

Page 247 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. creasing danger from intoxicating drinks, and mournful statistics show that it is in Christian nations that this evil prevails, especially in Great Britain and our owncountry. In contrast to this, we find the Mahometan religion forbids entirely the use of such drinks, and that, as the consequence, the Mahometans are far more free from intemperance than the Christian nations. Moreover, the Jewish people are freer from the vice of intemperance than the Christian communities around them. On this subject I was informed by the chief Rabbis of New York city that among the 60,ooo Jews their thirteen Rabbis knew not of even one of any of their congregations who was habitually intemperate.

They supposed such. cases might be found outside of their congregations, though they knew of none. When I inquired the cause of this it was ascribed, chiefly, to great care and faithfulness in family training. At one of their synagogues I observed that the men wore scarfs with a colored border, and was told that this was their weekly reminder at their worship of these words of their law, so greatly reverenced: “Ye shall lay up these my words (saith Jehovah) in 247

Page 248 view page image

248 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. your hearts and in your souls. And ye shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them on the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates, and bind them as a sign on your hand, that they may be as frontlets bedtween your eyes, that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children.” Moreover, this promise of long life for obedience has been remarkably fulfilled, as exhibited by scientific records in France, showing that the Jewish people, in spite of their oppressed condition among all nations, are not only the richest but the most long-lived and healthy people in the world, and this they believe is owing to their faithfulness in training their children to faithful obedience to their law. - To this also they ascribe their preservation as a distinct people in all ages and nations. Thus it appears by the records of other ages and nations that it is not by civil laws and penalties but by the religious training of the famnily, that temperance, prosperity, health and long life are best secured. In former days, ability to read the New Testament in the Greek, the language in which our Saviour spoke, was equired for admission to college, but now in

Page 249 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. many colleges it is dismissed; yet vile poetry celebrating heathen vices is retained! The Greek language is allowed by all to be the most perfect, and God has chosen it by which to instruct us in truth and duty, and woman is his chief minister in the family state to administer these divine teachings. Dean Alford and Bishop Ellicot, and other competent witnesses tell us that it is “an easy language,” and that “no one to whom God has given a fair measure of ability can justly plead that an accurate knowledge of the Greek Testament is beyond his reach.”

Would it not be well for Christian parents to at least equal their Jewish brethren in reverence for their Divine Writings, so that every woman and school-teacher shall in our public schools be prepared to read and instruct in this sacred language? V. It is conceded by all that the educated vicious are more dangerous than the ignorant, and that the safety of our republic depends more on moral and religious training than on intellectual. And yet we are now discussing whether the Bible shall be ejected from our public schools, while leading editors of religious papers and clergymen are advocating this 249

Page 250 view page image

250 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. measure! The plausible plea for this is that in schools supported by taxing infidels, pagans and all the various Christian sects, religion must be left out lest the rights of conscience should be abridged. But thcye are several ways to meet this difficulty; one is that adopted in several public schools, of having religious and moral instruction given either as the opening or closing exercise, allowing all parents to withhold their children from school at this time.

A better way is for the teachers so to conduct this part of school duty as not to interfere with the peculiar views of conscientious parents and children. But few are aware how nearly the better classes of pagan, Mahometan, Jewish and Christian parents are agreed in the moral and religious training of the young. “To do justly and love mercy,” “to fear God and keep his commandments” as made known by both nature and revelation, is what almost every parent of every religion and every nation wish their offspring to be trained to do: School Instruction in Morality and Religious Princiles may be given without trenching’ upon doctrinal or debatable grounds. In a recent work translated by Henry Ho.

Page 251 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. mer, of the Albany State Library, who is a returned missionary from Turkey, we find the teachings of’ the leading Mahometan theologian, their most popular religious teacher, to be identical with the fundamental truths of both the Jewish and Christian!

faith: that it shall be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked both here and forever in the life to come. In another recent work we find a collection of extracts from the sacred books of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Hindoos and the Chinese, in which all the virtues of the Christian faith are inculcated, and the rewards of obedience in a future life and the eternal penalties of disobedience are maintained. And the best educated parents in all these nations wish their children trained in conformity to these instructions. Let these truths, held in common by the good of all nations, be inculcated in our schools by discreet and properly trained teachers, and there would probably be universal approbation; or, if a few objected they might be allowed to withdraw their children at the regular hour for moral and religious instruction. In the interesting letters from the missionary teachers in preceding pages we find that their efforts for the 251

Page 252 view page image

252 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. moral and religious training of their scholars were approved by parents of all sects. VI. In none of our educational institutions have there been consistent and successful methods maintained to form the Hiabits of System, Order and Punctuality, which are even more important in the ermr)loyments of the family state than in the pursuits of business men. And nowhere are the diversities of mental organization more marked than in these particulars. Some minds have a natural tendency to system, order and punctuality, and little effort is needed to form these habits. But in other minds there is a constitutional aversion to conformity to such rules, or, indeed, to any rules. This is specially noticeable in minds in which imagination and fancy predominate.

It is by the housekeeper and mother that such habits be must formed in early life, and there are none more important to the comfort and repose of the family. In a family where the housekeeper and mother is lacking in these virtues, there is incessant jar and discomfort. The cook, if anxious to please, finds her carefully prepared dishes spoiled by delay. The husband, to meet his business appointments, must often eat in haste or lose a meal. No

Page 253 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. one knows when the meal is to begin, and soon there is no simultaneous gathering and no appropriate time for the service recognizing the Giver of all good and his paternal care. The hour of Scripture reading and prayer is uncertain and irregular, and for this reason often is relinquished altogether. No system of home employments can be maintained in such a family. Closets, drawers and bedchambers are in confusion, the multitudinous implements of woman’s work are mislaid, the search for needful articles takes up half the time that would otherwise be happily employed. Neither school nor college yet known aims to remedy such defects. My father lamented in himself the want of early training in these respects, and jocosely complained that half his life was spent in looking for his hat. It will be asked, Can these constitutional defects be remedied by education? My own happy experience is an encouraging reply, for there never was a more unpromising subject to train to habits of punctuality, system and order. And yet the gentle and persevering discipline of my early educators did secure these habits, and they have proved some of the chief causes of comfort and success. And 253

Page 254 view page image

254 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. what has been done for me, the chief of sinners as to natural revolt from these virtues, can be done for all by similar persistent love and efforts. And where it is not accomplished in the family, it can and ought-to be secured in the school. VII. In Chapter XIII. are the views of Professor Agassiz and Horace Greeley on defects in our systems of education. The following are additional indications of increasing dissatisfaction with our schools among those best informed: In the October number of “Old and New” is an article from an officer of one of our colleges, who has visited European schools and given much time and thought to this subject. He laments the want of scientific, practical training in our educational institutions, primary, academic and collegiate. As to our colleges, he claims that they are not (like those of Europe) well endowed and well officered, and gives as the reason that most of them are established by contending sects, so that in a majority of our States there is not a single college or university worthy the name, but only a multitude of little sectarian schools with pompous names, each doing its best to

Page 255 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. prevent the existence of any broader and better institution. He claims that, with few exceptions, our colleges are without complete facilities, without requisite libraries, without illustrative collections for the various branches of science, without suitable laboratories and without an adequate supply of modern apparatus and conveniences, so that our young men must go to Europe for completing the highest education. President Porter of Yale College, in a recent address, points out certain defects in the “special schools” that fit boys for college. One is that, even in childhood, when all should be treated alike, those fitting for college are confined to that narrow course which secures admission to colleges, and this involves to the college-bred man the loss of a background of common knowledge, which is very important. He claims that there is needed in all schools that common sense gained by acquaintance with common people, and also a knowledge of common things and of the hopes and aims of the masses, most of which is lost in the distinctive training for and in our colleges. He claims that in all preparatory schools there should be some training in 255.

Page 256 view page image

256 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. English language and literature, in the fundamentals of mathematics, in the outlines of general history, the outlines of the natural sciences, and an acquaintance with one modern language. He maintains that Latin and Greek are begun too early and pursued too exclusively, and that trustees and teachers enforce too high pressure in these branches, thus inducing weariness and disgust, forming mechanical habits of thought and study, and checking spontaneity and mental growth. President Chadbourne of Williams College, in a recent address, points out the following as prevailing defects in both private and public schools: Modes of study that induce bad habits of mind that last through life;-committing to memory great quantities of uninteresting and unimportant details, to be speedily forgotten; the use of text books crammed with useless details which only burden and confuse so that “our best text books need to be cut down onehalf.” He insists, not that they should teach less, but that they should teach more interesting and valuable matter. He claims that up to fourteen, children are taught in branches unfitted to their age or to their grade of intellect, and that

Page 257 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. they should be confined to the simple outlines of arithmetic, geography, history and the natural sciences, with general reading enough to make newspapers and the conversation of mature persons intelligible. He states the evil of wrong classing, by which the bright and the dull have the same lessons, instead of which, he says, “the dullards should be cared for as the lame and blind.” He points out the evils of the multiplication of rules and routine, by which individuality is repressed and a burden made of that which should be a delight, while there is a lacking of that enthusiasm in teachers who depend chiefly on text books, and who would otherwise excite the intellect and awaken interest. Lastly and chiefly he notices the mournful lack of that moral training which is the chief instrument in forming character and habits.

The defects and evils in our common schools are set forth in the reports of several school superintendents. For example, in the recent report of the Superintendent of Public Schools in Brooklyn, that ” City of Churches”

where we should expect the most care for the humbler classes, we find the schools so 2sl I

Page 258 view page image

258 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. overcrowded that so many as half the classes number from eighty to one hundred and eighty at each recitation, while these tremendous classes are taught and controlled by young untrained girls, many knowing but little more than their pupils, some not having full growth, and their average age being only eighteen. For the humble pittance of $400 a year to pay for both board and clothing, these young creatures teach five and six hours a day, and many of them an evening school in addition. So enormous is the crowding that in some recitation-rooms, and these poorly ventilated, the back rows cannot be reached by the teacher except by removing or treading on the front rows.

What a ruin-of health and intellect to both teachers and pupils with six hours taxation in such pestilential crowding! And now the new State-law is soon to be enforced, by which multitudes of the children without schools are to be added to these dens of abuse and cruelty. Is not a society to prevent cruelty toward young children and their teachers as much needed as the one which now protects dumb animals in New York?

Page 259 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. It is reported that the male principals who superintend these hordes of young teachers find no time for anything else, and so (as Brooklyn has never provided a normal school to train its teachers) most is done by young and untrained teachers. This is assigned as the reason why the boys of Brooklyn now leave school at the average age of fourteen, when formerly the average was fifteen. This superintendent objects to “co-education,” because it promotes immoralities, which he says he can illustrate by “sad facts.” Will not private schools multiply and public schools sink in respectability when such evils are presented by those who have the best chance of knowing the truth? As to other cities, there are some similar painful statistics made public of the Philadelphia schools. And while boarding in New York recently, I met a lady teacher of the public schools of that city prostrated by paralysis while attempting to teach and govern classes numbering from seventy to eighty! Thus it is in cities where in the churches God is presented as a loving’ father, most interested for the humble and neglected of his children, and especially for the lambs that 259

Page 260 view page image

260 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. are lost rather than the ninety and nine who are well provided. It is the little ones of the poor and ignorant classes who are thus huddled into dens of poisonous air, and subjected to sudden drafts from open windows, while no chance is given for instruction by qualified teachers, and nothing done for proper moral training. In this nation it is the laboring-classes who are to be the governing majority, and who also inculde large numbers of minds of the highest grades. But school statistics show that this great majority who are taxed for schools have the poorest educational advantages. For example, in Philadelphia, of the one hundred and forty-eight thousand in public schools only forty-five thousand are taught in anything but the primary branches, and of those who reach the grammar schools only a small portion graduate. Only ten out of every hundred of the pupils of our public schools learn anything except the primary branches, and leave usually at fourteen, while not one in five hundred reaches a college. In Pennsylvania only three hundred and forty out of fifteen hundred teachers are reported as properly qualified to teach even the primary

Page 261 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. branches, or to give anypractical preparation for a future profession. It is very remarkable that our school reports, usually, are confined merely to the expenditures, the number of children, and the proportion who attend school-but how they are taught and governed, and what intellectual and moral habits are formed, are passed over as not worthy of notice. The time is yet to come when supervisors of public schools will secure the best and shortest course to develop mind, body and good habits during the fourteen years to which the laboring-classes limit the schooling of their children, especially their boys, who are wanted for labor. At the same time they will also seek to draw off only the higher grades of mind for a more liberal education in high-schools and colleges.

In regard to the value of practical training combined with school studies, England furnishes very important experiments. For, by law, certain children in workshops and factories attend school six hours a day. Another class only half that time, and in the other half work in shops and mills.

And, to the surprise of superintendents, this experiment 261

Page 262 view page image

262 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. of thirty years’ standing shows that the half time scholars learn as much as those that attend school twice as many hours. And this is the reason: Study is a healthful and pleasing diversion from work, and work is equally a relaxation from study; while the discipline of the shop induces habits of punctuality, order and industry in the school-room. Moreover, knowledge, like food, needs time to digest, so that the cramming of many studies tends to debilitate rather than to strengthen. Six months of schooling, one hour a day, will accomplish far more than six months of continuous study. This experiment has ani important bearing on the question of training of young girls by such a method that only onehalf the day shall be spent in school studies, and the other half be devoted to domestic employments. In the preceding pages the effort commenced by ladies in Ohio, and afterwards conducted by Gov.

Slade, shows how much might be done by benevolent women to save our country from ignorance and vice. The same ladies also organized the American Woman’s Education Association, its leading object being to establish eoizdvwed institutions on

Page 263 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. the college plan of co-eqcua teachers, in which woman shall be trained for her distinctive profession as housekeeper, wife, mother, nurse of infancy and the sick, and the chief educator of childhood. Since the formation of this Association more than twenty colleges and professional schools have been opened to women, so that all women of the higher grades of intellect, or who wish to enter men’s professions, are amply provided with all needed advantages. In consequence of this, the Association has changed its plans, and is now aiming to secure the proper training of the daughters of the industrial classes for their future duties as housekeepers, wives, mothers, nurses of infants and the sick, and also all the domestic helpers needed in these various departments, and as far as practicable to do this in connection with our common schools. To this end the following Committees are formed. i. A Committee to prepare a course of study and training, and the textbooks suited to the objects proposed. These, before publication, will be submitted for criticism to leading educators, especially to the Superin 263

Page 264 view page image

EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. tendents of our State and City public schools.

2. A Committee of Correspondence to se cure the organization of influential women in every State, to cooperate by introducing the method of training and textbooks into both private and public shools. The profits of these textbooks will be employed to prepare suitable teachers, and for their comfort and success. These Committees will also aid in the selection, location, and care of missionary teachers in the more destitute sections of our country. There is an abundance of wealth, education, and leisure now in the hands of the women of our country, which require only efficient orgadization to meet every demand of benevolence. There are multitudes of well-educated Christian women as ready to become missionary teachers as those whose experience has been given in these pages. There is wealth enough in the hands of benevolent women to support all the agencies needed. What is wanted is a full view of our dangers as a nation, andt appropriate organization to meet these dangers. When our country was on the brink of disunion and 264

Page 265 view page image

QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. destruction, the women of our country organized to perform their part of the self-sac.rificing labor involved, and they did it wisely and well. No less dangers are now impending from the inroads of ignorance and vice threatening speedy ruin. Appended to this is a chart prepared from our census, giving to the eye a mournful picture of the present condition of our country as to illiteracy. In all those dark places the children are growing up in ignorance and vice, and even in the best educated States are hundreds of hamlets without schools. And in a few years all these children are to be our rulers or mothers of our rulers.

Here should be reared the missionary schoolhouse-a HOME for the teacher and a church for the hamlet. We are constantly meeting in newspapers statements of liberal benefactions from women to endow colleges and professional schools for men; is it unreasonable to hope that the time is near when unmarried women and widows will find equal privileges, so that a home can be secured to every educated woman, where, if not a natural mother, she may become a “Christ mother,” to rear neglected children not her own? Should not 265

Page 266 view page image

266 EDUCATIONAL REMINISCENCES. every young woman have an opportunity thus to aid in “saving her country”? Will not the fathers of our nation thus provide for their daughters? It might be a wise measure in providing-educational endowments for women, that they shall be required to establish a family and rear orphans or other neglected children, and thus the benefactions would sustain the best kind of permanent orphan asylum. THE

END.

Page 271 view page image

APPENDIX.

Page 272 view page image

APPENDIX. REVUE ENCYCLOPEDIQUE ou Analyse raisonnee des productions les plus remarquables dans la litterature, les sciences et les arts; par une reunion de membres de l’Institut et d’ autres hom mes de lettres. I a Paris, September, I83C. Art. 3me. Livwes atrangers. Etats Unis. Vues relatives au perfectionnement de l’educatio;, pr(‘sente’es aux curateurs de la MAaison d’Educatioiz de jeunes filles, a Hartford, et publies d’apres leur demande; par Catharine E. Beecher, Hartford, I83o, MI 8~ de 84.pages. L’auteur de cet ouvrage est directrice de l’Institution de jeunes filles i Hartford, etablissement dont elle a considerablement accri la renommee et la prospeite. Ce ne sont donc point des vues purement speculatives qu’elle communique au public, mais des fruits de l’experience parvenus a la maturite; il serait ai desirer qu’elle eut completement raison sur tous les points, car elle etablit qu’ it n’ y a point de defaut de caracte’re d’habititdes et de manieres qui nepuisse etre corrigd. Comme elle a continuellement une centaine de pen sionnaires sous les yeux, ella a certainement beaucoup vu, beaucoup observe; mais n’a-t-elle pas juge’

avec quelque indulgence? On ne lui saurait pas mauvais gre d’avoir mieux pense’ de quelques-unes de ses eleves qu’elles ne le mdritaient reellement, d’avoir considere comme gueris des maux qui n’etaient que pallies. Cete disposition a juger favorablement est peutetre une condition de rigeur pour que 1’ instituteur ou 1’ in stitutrice obtienne quelque succes. Ce petit ouvrage prouve ce que l’on soupgonnait deja, que l’on a fait en Ameique les memes fautes qu’en Europe, relativement a l’education; mais il fait voir aussi que l’on y fait des grands efforts pour sortir de cette ancienne et profonde

Page 273 view page image

APPENDIX. [ Transtation.] ENCYCLOPEDICAL REVIEW; or, i-hilosophical Analysis of Standard productions in Lit erature, Science and the Arts, by; a number of the Members of the French Institute and other literary authorities. Paris, Sept., 1830. Art.. 3d. Foreign Books. United States, Suggestions respecting improvements in education, presented to the Trustees of the Hartford Female Seminary, and published at their request, by Catharine E. Beecher, etc. The writer of this work is the directress of the Hartford Female Institute, an educational establishment of which she has largely increased the renown and prosperity. The views which she gives to the public are not, therefore, purely speculative ideas, but the matured fruits of experience; it would be desirable that she were completely justified in all her opinions, for she establishes as a principle, that “there is no defect whatever, in character, habits, or manners, which may not be corrected.” As she has constantly some hundred pupils inder -notice, she has certainly seen much, observed much; but has she not formed her judgments somewhat indulgently? We would not think the worse of her for judging too favorably some of her pupils, for considering as healed, evils which were but palliated. Such a disposition is, perhaps, an indispensable condition for success in teaching. This little book proves what was already suspected, namely, that the same mistakes have been made in America as in Europe respecting education; but it proves also that great efforts have been made there to get out of the old, deep rut, and that they have secured

Page 274 view page image

APPENDIX. olmniere, que l’on y obtient des ameliorations dont l’effet nrecessaire sera d’en amener d’autres non moins importantes. L’ecrit de Madame Beecher est, a quelques egards, une statistique des meilleures maisons d’education de demoiselles, aux Etats-Unis; celle d’ Hartford serait, a coup siur, des plus remarquables, meme dans l’une des plus grandes capitales de l’Eprope. L’auteur soutient que les femmes doivent etre exclusivement chargees de l’education des personnes de leur sexe: on ne peut lui opposer aucune experience contraire mais quelques inductions tres probables font soupgonner que sa proposition est trop absolue. On sait que l’education de l’homme ne serait pas aussi-bien faite par des hommes seuls, que iorsque des femmes sensees y prennent part; ne peut-on pas appliquer la merne remarque l’education desjeunes filles? Puisque nous en sommes encore 6 faire ces questions, et que la solution nous embarrasse, il faut avouer qu’en fait d’education, nous en sommes encore aux premiers elements. Recuillons donc les faits instructifs, car c’est par les faits seulement que les arts s’enrichissent et s’acheminenr. vers leur perfection; et quel art merite mieux nos recherches et nos soins que celui d’elever nos enfans pour leur bonheur, et pour le bien-etre des generations futures? F. 274

Page 275 view page image

APPENDIX. certain improvements, the inevitable effects of which will be to lead to others no less important. Miss Beecher’s work is in some respects a statistical report of the best female schools in America. The one in Hartford would be certainly one of the most remarkable, even in a great European capital. The author maintains that women should be exclusively intrusted with the education of their own sex. No contrary experience can be opposed to her; but very probable inductions lead us to suspect her assertion too absolute. It is acknowledged that man’s education is not as well achieved by men alone as when sensible women take a share therein; cannot the same remark apply also to the education of girls? While we are still considering these questions and puzzled how to solve them, it must be acknowledged that, concerning education, we have not yet progressed beyond the first elements. Let us then collect instructive facts, for it is through facts alone that arts can grow nobler and tend towards perfection; and what art better deserves our research and care than the one of bringing up our children for their own happiness and for the welfare of generations to come? F. 275

Page 276 view page image

APPENDIX. certain improvements, the inevitable effects of which will be to lead to others no less important. Miss Beecher’s work is in some respects a statistical report of the best female schools in America. The one in Hartford would be certainly one of the most remarkable, even in a great European capital. The author maintains that women should be exclusively intrusted with the education of their own sex. No contrary experience can be opposed to her; but very probable inductions lead us to suspect her assertion too absolute. It is acknowledged that man’s education is not as well achieved by men alone as when sensible women take a share therein; cannot the same remark apply also to the education of girls? While we are still considering these questions and puzzled how to solve them, it must be acknowledged that, concerning education, we have not yet progressed beyond the first elements. Let us then collect instructive facts, for it is through facts alone that arts can grow nobler and tend towards perfection; and what art better deserves our research and care than the one of bringing up our children for their own happiness and for the welfare of generations to come? F. 275

Page 276A view page image

-~ ~~~ I ; 6;>i~ji~ — - –- -.T1J I. I i I’ i I \ A

Page 276B view page image

Powered by DLXS

To comment or inquire about content, contact moa-feedback@umich.edu To report errors, contact umdl-help@umich.edu Reprint Information for this collection