|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 13
But even without this change in ideas, economic conditions steadily
forced the women into educational activity. There were not enough men
available to teach the scattered country schools, and citizens had to be
trained for the needs of the new democracy. John Adams recognized this
when he wrote to Mr. Warren that their wives must "teach their sons the
divine science of politics;" though he would have been one of the last
to favor admitting women to full participation in public life. He did
not realize that if women were to train men for citizenship, the
rudiments of knowledge which they had learned in scattered schools and
in their poor little academies must be greatly supplemented. Life,
however, is never logical, and at this advance men balked. Necessity was
forcing women into schools as teachers, and hence into larger
preparation for their own lives; but public opinion, here as elsewhere,
failed to recognize the forces that were compelling its action.
Thus the work of furnishing more advanced intellectual training for
American women had to be started by the women themselves. This is
possibly the first time in human history that a great group of people
feeling itself irresistibly moving toward a social, industrial and
political readjustment, little less than revolutionary in its nature,
has gone deliberately to work to prepare for the change through
education. The working classes of the world are doing the same thing
now; but women showed them the way. In some vague degree, American
women recognized the truth which Dr. Gore recently brought before a mass
of working men in England. "All this passion for justice will accomplish
nothing," he declared, "unless you get knowledge. You may become strong
and clamorous, you may win a victory, you may affect a revolution, but
you will be trodden down again under the feet of knowledge if you leave
knowledge in the hands of privilege, because knowledge will always win
over ignorance."[21]
[21] _The Highway_, London, Nov., 1911.
American women were fortunate, too, in having for their leaders such
women as Emma Willard, Mary Lyon and Catherine Beecher. Emma Willard was
a woman of the world; she had traveled abroad and she brought to her
work a cultivated nature, wide experience of life and natural
leadership. Her personality went far toward lifting the movement to a
plane of respect. After trying a little academy in Vermont, she appealed
to the State of New York in 1814 for help. In this appeal, she wisely
adopted the prevailing view of the relation of the state to education.
The state must have good citizens, she repeats, and then goes on, "The
character of children will be formed by their mothers; and it is through
the mothers that the government can control the character of its future
citizens." The State of New York granted her articles of incorporation
for her academy at Waterford, N.Y., but refused her the modest sum of
five thousand dollars for which she had asked. In 1821, she established
the Troy Female Seminary, where for years she trained and led the
intellectual life of American women.
Miss Mary Lyon begged the money from the common people with which she
opened Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1837. Those who feared the education of
women were disarmed by the fact that in the new institution domestic
service was emphasized to the extent of having the girls do all their
own work. Another group of possible critics was won over by the fact
that religious instruction received constant care. But notwithstanding
the conserving influence of housework and religion, there went steadily
out from Mount Holyoke during the following years a strong line of
teachers demanding ever larger opportunity for themselves and for those
they taught.
Miss Catherine Beecher added to her work in schools for girls a general
propaganda for woman's education, and she devised large plans for its
development. In 1852, she organized the American Woman's Educational
Association "to aid in securing to American women a liberal education,
honorable position, and remunerative employment." She helped to start
girls' schools in half a dozen cities, and by writing and talking she
sowed in the hearts of women, especially in the Middle West, a
discontent with existing conditions and a deep desire to know.
From the time of this awakening in the thirties and forties, two lines
of educational activity for the advancement of woman's education
steadily developed. One was the effort of women to educate themselves in
distinctly women's schools; and the other was the movement by which
existing institutions for boys and men were gradually opened to girls
and women. These two lines of activity still remain distinct, and not
always sympathetic with each other's aims.
The effort to establish distinctly women's schools was continued after
the Civil War by Matthew Vassar, who founded in 1861, and opened in
1865, the first adequately endowed and organized college for women in
America. Ten years later, Miss Sophie Smith founded and endowed Smith
College to furnish women "with means and facilities for education equal
to those that are offered in colleges for young men." The institution
was opened in 1875; and in the same year Henry Durant established
Wellesley College.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|