And now in my recollections of home discussions, and of the admiration universally accorded to my mother's intellectual gifts, I should say that bythe common school, by domestic duties, by English literature, and by the sciences studied in one small encyclopedia and two or three other scientific books, my mother was, if not superior, fully equal to my father in mental power and culture. And in fine writing and most æsthetic developments my aunt was superior to both, though she was their inferior in several other directions.
Moreover, five of my father's sons were trained in the best colleges, while his daughters all knew little or nothing of the chief branches included in the college course. And yet the domestic training of the daughters and their more extensive reading, as I view it, made them fully equal to my brothers in intellectual development.
Similar observations met me in general society when comparing the mental development of sisters having only a common school education with that of college-trained brothers, and this at all periods and in every direction. And it is in view of such multiplied illustrations that I understand how it is that women, with much fewer advantages of classicand mathematical training than college graduates enjoy, prove better educators than men for children and for the more mature of their own sex.
Here I wish it to be understood, that my aim in remarks on colleges is not to present their advantages or deficiencies, except so far as they are influencing female institutions to the same courses of study and organization. I am not qualified to advise as to institutions for men; but the profession and pursuits of women as a sex are to be so widely diverse from those of men that they should secure as diverse methods of training.
I regard the effort to introduce women into colleges for young men as very undesirable, and for many reasons. That the two sexes should be united, both as teachers and pupils, in the same institution seems very desirable, but rarely in early life by a method that removes them from parental watch and care, and the protecting influences of a home.
There will always be exceptional cases when children have no suitable parents or guardians;while at a maturer period, after the principles and habits are largely solidified, there are advantages in sending a child from home. The true method, at the immature periods of life, is the union of the home and the school in protecting from dangers and in forming good habits and principles.
I have repeatedly resided in the immediate vicinity of boarding-schools for boys, embracing the children of my relatives or intimate friends, and never without wonder and distress at the risks to some and the ruin to others constantly going on. Such institutions always have had inmates shrewd and often malignant, while the rash curiosity of youth is ready to meet any danger.
Withdrawn from parents and sisters, and all home influences, the young boy is lodged, often in isolated dormitories or in negligent private families, with class-mates of all kinds of habits. And so tobacco, creating an unnatural thirst for other exciting stimulants, is secretly introduced; then alcoholic drinks; then the most gross and licentious literature; and all so secretly that teachers can not meet the evil. I have knownthese results repeatedly in schools under the most careful, pious, and celebrated teachers.
Thus, at the age most susceptible and most dangerous, the young boy is taken from mother and sisters and the safe guardianship of a home, and amid such perils committed to strangers who, with multitudinous pupils and cares, can give no special care to any one child.
Another general principle attained by my experience is, that both quickness of perception and retention of memory depend very greatly on thedegree of interestexcited. It is not the most learned teacher that always has most success in imparting permanent knowledge. As an illustration, when I commenced teaching Latin, it was under the care of a very accurate and faithful brother, who stood first in scholarship in Yale as valedictorian. I was then only a few pages ahead of my scholars in theLiber Primus, and yet, when they had finished most of Virgil and selections from Cicero, this brother and several other examiners said that they had never seen any classes of boys superior to my class in accurate and complete scholarship.
Even in the pronunciation of the French, I have found that it was not the best educated teacher, speaking with the purest Parisian accent, who was most successful, but rather a lady whose enthusiasm and perseverance and carefulness would not allow a single syllable to be mispronounced by her pupils. This explains how it is that women with less education so often prove more successful than men in managing female institutions.
By this same general principle of quickening intellect by exciting interest, I learned the importance of educating every young girl with some practical aim, by which, in case of poverty, she might support herself; and also, of selecting for this end some pursuit suited to her natural tastes and character. To study what is liked and with the hope of thus securing some agreeable and substantial advantage in future life more than doubles the interest, and thus quickens and exalts the intellectual powers.
In this view of the case, it became an important inquiry as to which of the employments and studies of our higher female seminaries could be made available in securing a remunerative profession to awoman, and one that would be suitable for her sex. Here, again, I may be allowed to introduce some of my own experience as guiding to a conclusion, at least in one particular.
All through my childhood, my father daily read the Bible, in course, at family prayers, and when his inquisitive children asked questions as to matters of delicacy, they were told that the Bible was given by God to instruct men in all their duties, and that some things were not for children to know till they were men and women; that this inquiry was about things they could not understand, and that it was wrong to try to do so.
After such wise training, my first experience as a teacher of Latin was to a class of young girls as ignorant as myself of all the wickedness of the world; and then I was plied with questions I could not answer except by aid of a brother; when to my dismay and disgust I found the worst vices of heathenism, and those most likely to tempt young boys, made respectable and attractive by the charms of classic poetry, and forming a part of a boy's training for college.
And here I would ask why it has come to pass that the Bible, in its original Greek, is turned out of the college course of most of our leading colleges, (for it formerly was required,) while the vulgarity and vice of heathenism are preserved and made attractive in fitting boys for college? Is it not time for woman to have a more decided ministry in training young boys for their college life? Should not women be trained in Latin and Greek, so that mothers and sisters thus taught could fit young boys for college, instead of sending them at the most perilous age away from the watch and care of a home and all female influence, to boys' boarding-schools, to mix with all sorts, and there be taught all manner of evil? Teachers trained in these languages could go into families to aid a mother in these duties, and would be liberally compensated. This, then, is a profession for which a woman can be trained even in our common schools as well as in female colleges.
Another very interesting fact revealed by personal experience is, that there is no knowledge so thorough and permanent as that gained in teachingothers. Repeatedly, in my own case, and still oftener in the case of my teachers, has it been observed that a lesson or problem supposed to be comprehended, was imperfect, and corrected only in attempts to aid others in understanding it. In no other profession is the sacred promise, "Give and it shall be given unto you," so fully realized as in that of a teacher.
This view of the case has led me to devise methods by which every pupil, in school-days, shall have an opportunity to attempt to teach, and be taught how to do it in the best manner; and that, too, in every stage of advancement from lowest to highest. There are methods which secure this advantage with great economy of time and labor which can not be detailed here.
Another very important principle in acquiring knowledge is the taking of a few branches at one time, and especially in having these associated in their character, so that each is an assistance in understanding and remembering the other. For illustration, let geography, history, polite literature, and composition, for a certain period, be the leadingstudies of a class which has completed a short course in these studies in the preparatory school. Then let history be studied by successive periods, marked by some great events or by some distinguished characters; and as each country is introduced, let its civil, political, and physical geography be fully studied; its animals and productions be illustrated by drawings and by selection from travels read to the class; this might be done either in connection with the history or as a separate class in geography, conducted in connection with the class of history and reciting at a different hour.
At the same time, the teacher of the class in literature andbelles-lettrescould be presenting at another hour the state of science, literature, and the fine arts, with illustrative drawings, and also an account of the prominent learned men and authors of that period, with some account of their most celebrated works, reading some selections. For example, suppose, the period that of Alexander the Great, by this method, one teacher would introduce most of the geography of countries of the ancient world, while the literature and the fine arts of Greece inits palmy days would, under another teacher, be connected with the study of its history. At the same time the exercises in a daily class in composition might have topics and exercises to correspond.
So in the period of the crusades; in one class, the history would be studied; in another, the civil, political, and physical geography of the countries introduced; in another, the history of literature, the fine arts, and the distinguished authors, with some account of their works. This period might be still more vividly presented in standard works of fiction, such as Scott'sTalismanandIvanhoe, to be read in hours of social gathering or at home.
To make room for such a method, much of the minute and uninteresting details now so excessive in our geographies and histories, which are forgotten as soon as learned, would be omitted for these more valuable and more interesting exercises. On such a plan, the pupil would have three or four recitations on diverse topics, and yet so connected that each would illustrate and vivify the other, while the interest thus excited would make permanent in the memory all these details.
There is great loss of time and labor in the common method of pursuing four, five, or six disconnected branches of study. The mind is distracted by the variety, and feels a feeble and divided interest in all. In many cases, this method ofcrammingthe mind with uninteresting and disconnected details serves to debilitate rather than to promote mental power. The memory is the faculty chiefly cultivated, and this at the expense of the others. This method has been greatly increased since the honors of graduating have become so popular in female colleges and high-schools.
The excess of uninteresting details is a serious objection to many text-books of history and geography. It is very much to be regretted that the plan introduced in Woodbridge and Willard's Geography, by which details are systematized under general heads, is so widely neglected.
No experience has been more valuable to me than that relating to physical training. Few are aware how much can be done in schools to promote development, health, and the proper and graceful use of the body and limbs. Myresidence in such a large number and variety of health establishments, in studying the causes and cure of the prevailing debility and diseases of American women, has led to the conviction that there are very few diseases or deformities which a teacher properly trained may not remedy by natural methods, and those which may be made a part of school training.
Here I would invite the special attention of mothers and teachers to a work on the Diseases of Women, by Dr. George H. Taylor, published by G. Maclean, 85 Nassau St., N. Y., in which such natural methods are presented, many of which can be employed in the family and school without the attendance of a physician.
In the early part of my school experience, a European lady artist of fine personal appearance offered to teach in my school a system of exercises by which she herself, once a humpback cripple, was restored to a perfect and graceful figure. These were disconnected exercises, one portion of which I introduced into my work on physiology and calisthenics as what could be easilyused in all schools without demanding a separate room and dress for the purpose.
Other portions I combined into a system of calisthenic exercisesset to music, and demanding a separate room, and this method was extensively introduced into schools until Dr. Dio Lewis prepared his system, now extensively used.
The difficulties of Dr. Lewis's method are, that it demands a separate dress and room for the purpose, which multitudes of schools will not adopt, and also is so violent as to endanger the health of delicate young girls, while it has but little tendency to promote ease and gracefulness of person and movements. For these reasons it is constantly passing out of use after a short trial.
In place of this, I have originated another method by which personal defects and deformities are remedied, and gracefulness in the movement of head, body, and limbs promoted. It includes exercises whichgentlytrain all the muscles, which are varied and entertaining, and which are performed to music, the pupils singing songs prepared for each exercise.
The results in curing defects and promoting health, ease, and gracefulness of movement and manner have been so remarkable as to excite some wonder that, even in dancing-schools, so little has been attempted in these particulars, when so much might be so easily effected. The proper and graceful mode of walking, sitting, and using the hands and arms is rarely taught in any schools. So, also, the training of the voice to agreeable tones and enunciation in conversation is almost never attempted, and yet few things have a more constant influence in giving pleasure.
The regulation and use of amusements as a part of education is, as yet, scarcely recognized as a school duty. There is nothing that gains more personal regard and influence with pupils than joining in their amusements, while opportunities are thus given to promote both health and literary improvement. And teachers need this kind of exercise and relaxation as much or more than their scholars.
One very valuable method is combining thereading of interesting works of fiction with the period of history pursued in school hours, and also with ornamental needle-work pursued while listening to reading. In long winter evenings, an hour for study, an hour for active amusements, and an hour for this kind of reading and needle-work would unite health, pleasure, and literary improvement in an unusual degree.
In resuming the religious training of an institution embracing pupils whose parents hold views differing essentially from mine, it becomes my duty to state the method I shall pursue. I propose to avoid all conflict with opinions taught to my pupils by their parents and clergymen. I shall simply take the teachings of Christ as my only guide, and present, as he did, "Our Father in heaven" as a kind and sympathizing parent, who loves and cares forallthe children he has created more tenderly than any earthly parent can do; who ever is seeking their best good; who is pleased when they strive to do right, and grieved when they do wrong.
If any come to me for help in regard totheological doctrines, I shall teach them the simple laws of interpretation used in common life, and how to employ them in studying for themselves the teachings of the Bible. I shall assume the foundation principle of the teachings of Jesus Christ as the basis of religious training. I meanthe dangers of the future world. For it was the prime object of his advent to teach us these dangers, and the way of escape.
Here I shall avoid all theories and all speculations, and confine myself strictly tothe factstaught by Jesus Christ. I shall assume as truethe factrevealed by the only person who has died and returned to this life to tell us what awaits us in that dark and silent land toward which we all are hastening; the solemn and dreadfulfactthat there are such awful dangers in the world to come that the chief end and aim of this life should be to save ourselves and all we can influence, and, if need be, at the sacrifice of every earthly plan and enjoyment.
Still more solemn to each individual mind isthe facttaught by our Lord, that the numberof those who escape an awful doom in the future life depends on the character and efforts of the followers of Christ.
I shall assume as true thefactrevealed by Jesus Christ that theonlyway of salvation is byfaithin our Creator; not a mere intellectual belief in his existence and laws, but a faith including this belief and also practical obedience to his laws; byrepentance, not a mere emotion of sorrow, but including the ceasing of disobedience; bylove, not chiefly emotional, but rather that which is thus defined by inspiration, "This is the love of God, that ye keep his commandments."
Obedience to the laws of our Creator, physical, social, and moral, being the chief element of thefaith,repentance, andloveby which alone we escape the dangers of the future world, the question will be urged as tothe degreeof obedience which will secure safety. Here we find in Christ's teachings thatperfectobedience is not indispensable to salvation. The demand is that "the heart" (that is, the chief aim and interest) be devoted to such obedience. We are to "seekfirst" the kingdomof God andhis righteousness. And all who do this, in both the Old Testament and the New, are recognized as the righteous, as the children of God, and as heirs to the eternal blessedness of his kingdom.
It is the revelation of the dangers of the life to come which decides the character of the worldly educator in contrast to that of the Christian. The one has for the leading interest and aim to secure the enjoyments of this life; the other has as the chief interest and aim to follow Christ in self-denying labors to save as many as possible from the dangers of the life to come. The one lives as if there were little or no danger in the future world. The other toils, as if in the perils of a shipwreck, to save as many as possible and at whatever personal sacrifice of ease or worldly enjoyment. The one finds little occasion for self-sacrificing labors; the other is constantly aiming to save others from sin and its ruin by daily self-denying efforts.
It was "for the joy that was set before him" that "the Shepherd and Bishop of souls""endured the cross, despising the shame." And when he invites his followers to take and bear the same cross, he encourages with the assurance that this yoke is easy and this burden light, and that it brings "rest to the soul."
And here, for the encouragement of my pupils and friends, I feel bound to give my testimony to the verity of these promises.
It is now more than forty years that my chief interest and aim has been to labor to save my fellow-men to the full extent of my power. To this end I have sacrificed all my time, all my income, my health, and every plan of worldly ease and pleasure. With sympathies that would naturally seek the ordinary lot of woman as the ideal of earthly happiness, with no natural taste for notoriety or public action, with tastes for art, and imaginative and quiet literary pursuits, I have, for all that period, been doing what, as to personal taste, I least wished to do, and leaving undone what I should most like to do. I have been for many years a wanderer without a home, in delicate health, and often baffled in favorite plans of usefulness.And yet my life has been a very happy one, with more enjoyments and fewer trials than most of my friends experience who are surrounded by the largest share of earthly gratifications. And since health is restored, except as I sympathize in the sorrows of others, I am habitually as happy as I wish to be in this world. And this is not, as some may say, the result of a happy temperament; for in early life, at its most favored period, I was happy chiefly by anticipations that were not realized, and never with that satisfying, peaceful enjoyment of the present, which is now secured, and is never to end.
The preceding views lead to inquiries of great practical importance, such as these:
Is it consistent with Christian principles to take children from the care of parents at the most critical period of life, and congregate them in large boarding-schools and colleges, where temptations multiply and individual love and care are diminished?
Is it practicable, in public and private schools,to institute methods by which each pupil shall be trained according to peculiar wants, so that deficient faculties shall be developed, and unfortunate intellectual, physical, and moral traits or habits be rectified?
Can such schools institute methods by which every pupil shall, at least,commencea training for some business in future life, to which natural abilities and tastes incline, and in which success would be most probable?
Can woman's distinctive profession be made a large portion of her school education?
To aid in deciding these questions, the following is given as theidealat which I have been aiming in efforts to establish aWoman's University; by which I mean, not a large boarding-establishment of pupils removed from parental care, but an institution embracing the whole course of a woman's training from infancy to a self-supporting profession, in which both parents and teachers have a united influence and agency.
According to this ideal, such an institution would be divided into distinct schools; allunder the same board of supervision, and all carrying out a connected and appropriate portion of the same plan. These are:
1. TheKindergarten, for the youngest children, who are not to use books;
2. ThePrimary School, for children just commencing the use of books;
3. ThePreparatory School, introductory to the higher;
4. TheCollegiate School, embracing a course of four years;
5. TheProfessional School, to prepare a woman for all domestic duties and for a self-supporting profession.
For the control of all these there would be such adivision of responsibilitiesas follows:
1. The first would be thedepartment of intellectual training; committed to a woman of high culture in every branch taught in the collegiate school; possessing quick discernment, intellectual and moral force, and great interest in her special department. To her would be committed the superintendence of all the schools,except the professional, and it would be her duty to secureperfect lessonsfrom every pupil by the following method.
She would first gain from the teachers such an arrangement of lessons for every child as is fitted to its ability, and, if need be, have classes so divided that those of nearly equal ability shall be in one class, that the brighter or more advanced might not be retarded. Then, at the close of the daily school, it would be the duty of every teacher to send every pupil who has not aperfectlesson, whatever might be the cause, to the charge of this lady superintendent, who would keep them with her until each had studied and recited the imperfect lesson in the most satisfactory manner. By this method perfect lessons will be secured every day from every pupil.
It would also be her duty to carry out a method, which will not here be detailed, by which, after due training, every pupil shall occasionally act as teacher under her supervision. By this and another method, not here indicated,great economy of time will be secured to pupils who ordinarily are obliged to spend much time in recitation-rooms in hearing others recite, without any special benefit to themselves, and involving great trial of their patience, and also temptation to irregularities. Likewise it would be the duty of this teacher to ascertain intellectual defects, and adapt measures for the remedy; also to ascertain, by aid of both parents and teachers, natural tastes and aptitudes, with reference to special school-training in branches preparatory to a self-supporting profession.
2. The department ofmoral trainingwould be given to a woman of high moral and mental culture, whose tastes, talents, and experience prepare her to excel in this department. It would be her duty to study the character and discover the excellences of every pupil, by aid both of the other teachers and the parents, and then to devise methods of improvement; instructing the other teachers how to aid in these efforts. She also would seek the aid and coöperation of the most mature and influential pupils, and directthem how to exert a coöperating influence. The general religious instruction of the institution also would be conducted under her supervision and control.
3. The department of thephysical trainingof all the institution would be committed to a woman of good practical common sense, of refined culture and manners, and one expressly educated for this department. By the aid of both parents and teachers, she would study the constitution and habits of every pupil, and administer a method of training to develop healthfully every organ and function, and to remedy every defect in habits, person, voice, movements, and manners.
Here I would remark that my extensive investigations in many health-establishments as to the causes of the decay of female health, and my extensive opportunities for gaining the opinions and counsels of the most learned and successful physicians of all schools, lead me to the belief that there are few chronic maladies, deformities, or unhealthful habits that may not be entirely remedied by a system of physical exercise and traininginschools, under the charge of a woman properly qualified for these duties.
If a similar officer were provided for our colleges, whose official duty should be to train the body to health, strength, grace, and good manners, should we not see much fewer sallow faces, round shoulders, projecting necks, shambling gaits, awkward gestures, and gawky and slovenly manners, such as now too frequently mark the college-graduate? Why have the heathen youth of ancient Greece so excelled those of our age and religion in manly strength, beauty, and grace?
And if a department in colleges should be instituted, on the plan here indicated formoral training, would not the barbarous and vulgar practices that so often degrade the manners, and endanger life and limb, be ended?
It is a great evil in many of our colleges and professional schools, that when a professor has once gained his chair, no degree of dullness or neglect will oust him, especially if supported by nepotism or a clique. This I have so often heard reported of institutions with which myfamily and personal friends have been connected, that it would seem as if few such institutions escaped this evil. And it seems to be one which might be remedied by means of such an officer as has been described as head of the department of intellectual training, whose official duty it should be to examine every department and report deficiencies to the faculty and corporation for remedy.
In this connection I would entreat special attention to the perils of young girls in most large boarding-schools, and such as are little realized. The collecting of many into buildings and rooms imperfectly warmed and ventilated, the overtasking the brain by excessive study, the excitements of boarding-school life in contrast to home quietude, the unhealthful food and condiments bought at shops or sent from home and distributed to companions, the want of proper healthful exercise, the want of maternal watch and care at critical periods and at commencing disease, the debilitating practices taught at the most dangerous period to theignorant by the thoughtless or vicious, and many other unfortunate influences, combine to a greater or less extent in all large boarding-schools.
Having had charge of one myself for nearly ten years, in which, as it seemed to me, every thing was done that could be to abate such evils, I have concluded that such institutions for both boys and girls may be called successful only on the same calculation as would be made in cultivating a garden on the top of a house. The best of soil, seed, manure, and labor, with water and sun and awnings, may be provided, and yet the proper place to make a good garden is on mother earth. And so the proper place to educate children before maturity is under the mother's care, with the coöperating aid of a school.
If I could narrate one half of the sad histories of the ruined boys and girls, and the consequent agonies from blasted parental hopes, that have come to my personal knowledge, where health or morals, or both, were destroyed for a whole life atlarge boarding-schools, this false and fatal method would be greatly abated.
And here I would direct attention to one item so pernicious, and yet so common and so misunderstood as to excite constant wonder and regret as connected with boarding institutions for both sexes, and that isthe want of effective methods for providing pure air. In private families, only a few lungs vitiate the inhaled air; but the larger the number in one building, the larger are the arrangements needed for emptying out the foul air and introducing the pure.
An open fire is a sure and certain method. But when buildings are warmed by hot-air furnaces, or by hot-water or steam-pipes, the almost inevitable results are pernicious. In the case of heated air from a furnace, it always will find exit from a building in the shortest or most available direction, and then all the rooms not in this line of draught will have the air nearly stationary, to be breathed over and over again by their inmates.
Heating by steam or by hot-water pipesinvolves still greater difficulties, when no arrangement is made for carrying off the foul air, inasmuch as it is the airinthe house which is heated without introducing pure air.
This is the most dangerous of all methods of warming when there is no connected ventilating arrangement, while it is the best and most agreeable of all methods when properly managed. Mr. Lewis Leeds, ventilating engineer in New-York City, has invented the following method. The coils of steam or hot-water pipes are placed close to a window, with an opening at the bottom of it, regulated by a register which admits pure air directly on to the coils, and thus it is warmed.
Thus a person can sit by the coils and secure radiated heat as from a fire, have the light of the window and the influx of perfectly pure and yet warm air. In addition, every room has an opening both at top and bottom into a warm-air flue, through which the impure air of the room is constantly carried off.
Anyroom can be perfectly ventilated which hasopenings at the top and bottom of a flue, through which warm air is passing. But no flues filled with cold air will ventilate a room, though housebuilders, and householders, and school committees have been ignorantly providing such useless arrangements all over the land.
And here I affirm with heart-felt sorrow that never, in a single instance, have I known or even heard of a large boarding-school with any proper arrangements for ventilation. Even Vassar College, now so extensively regarded as a model institution, has adopted the most dangerous mode of warming without any arrangement but doors and windows to supply pure air to its recitation-rooms and sleeping-rooms.
And so, as in all similar cases, the strong and well, who are distressed for want of pure air, will have windows open, and then the delicate, who are not inured to sudden changes or to great extremes, will take colds. There is no doubt that the reports of the miasmatic diseases and lung affections of teachers and pupils in this institution have been greatly exaggerated;but not because there has not been abundant reason for expecting such results.
When I took charge of my present school, I found neither the boarding-house nor school-building provided with any proper modes of ventilation, and after making all changes for improvement at command, it is still needful to make it the constant duty of one teacher to see that, so far as practicable, every room in school and boarding-house is properly warmed and ventilated every hour of the day and night.
In regard to the course of study in the collegiate department of a woman's university, there should be as great an amount as is required in any of our colleges, yet only a few studies carried to so great an extent as in many sciences pursued by men. But there should be a muchgreater variety, together with an accuracy and thoroughness that colleges rarely secure. And all should have reference to women's profession, and not to the professions of men. Much in this department at first must be experimental, having in view the ideal indicated.
So in regard to introducingpracticaltraining for woman's domestic dutiesas a part of common school education; although it is certain that much more can be done than ever has been attempted, and that, too, as a contribution to intellectual development rather than the reverse, this also must be a matter of experiment.
In regard to aspecialtraining in the preparatory and the collegiate schools for future self-supporting employments, much more can be done than has ever been supposed, and a few particulars will be enumerated to illustrate. Young women of affectionate disposition, good intelligence and morals, having only limited means, might be trained to become amother's assistantin charge of a nursery, partly by the studies of the primary and preparatory schools and partly by learning the methods of the Kindergarten. Thousands of parents in all parts of our nation would offer liberal wages to young women thus trained for one of the most sacred offices of the family state.
Women of suitable social and moral character might be trained,in connection with school studies,to be superior seamstresses and mantua-makers, and thus be enabled to gain liberal wages.
If young ladies knew how much usefulness and comfort may be connected with this domestic art, they would seek it with more interest than any school study. The scarcity of well-trained mantua-makers in all parts of the land has made my early training in this art a great blessing to me and to many others whom I have been thus enabled to aid and to teach; and there is no branch of school training that can be made so directly available in promoting economy, comfort, and usefulness.
Women trained to fit young boys for college, in private families or in small neighborhood schools, would command very high remuneration in many quarters.Everyyoung girl whose means will allow it ought to be prepared for this duty.
Pupils who have a decided talent for either music, drawing, or other fine arts, might have aspecialtraining for one of these professions; while those without any such tastes or aptitudes should be dissuaded from wasting time, labor, and money,as is so absurdly and widely practiced, in learning to play the piano and acquiring other accomplishments never pursued in after-life. Nine tenths of young girls thus instructed lose all they learn in a very short period.
Some pupils have fine voices and a talent and taste for elocution, and such might be trained for teachers of this art or for public readings.
Some pupils have talents that prepare them to excel in authorship, and to such an appropriate and more extensive literary culture could be afforded.
The art of book-keeping and of quick and legible penmanship insures remunerative employment; and many other specialties might be enumerated in which,during school-days, a woman might be trained to a self-supporting profession. Andeverywoman should be trained for all the duties that may in future life be demanded as wife, mother, nurse, and school-teacher, if not in the ordinary school, in a separate professional school.
When institutions are endowed to train women for all departments connected with the family state, domestic labor, now so shunned anddisgraced, will become honorable, will gain liberal compensation, and will enable every woman to secure an independence in employments suited to her sex. And when this is attained, there will be few or none who will wish to enter the professions of men or take charge of civil government.
Having expressed so strongly my views in reference to large boarding-schools for both sexes, I will add some further details of myidealfor organizing a Woman's University. This has been suggested by recent interviews with some who may have much influence in managing the large funds recently bequeathed in Massachusetts for establishing institutions for women, in one case a lady having bestowed what will probably amount to nearly half a million, and in another case a gentleman has bequeathed a million and a half for this purpose.
This, I believe, is but the beginning of similar benefactions that will be provided for women in all parts of our country. There are men of wealth who have lost a dear mother, wife, or daughter,who would find comfort and pleasure in perpetuating a beloved name by an endowment that for age after age will minister to the education and refinement of women and the support and training of orphans.
In this view, it seems very important that the first endowed institutions of this kind should adopt plans that may be wisely imitated.
It seems desirable that such endowed institutions should be placed in or so near a large town that the pupils of all the schools, except the professional one, should reside with their parents instead of congregating in a great boarding-house. The professional school would ordinarily embrace only women of maturity, and might demand a location with surrounding land for floriculture, horticulture, and other feminine professions.
The Kindergarten, the primary school, and the preparatory school might each have a principal and an associate principal, supported partly by tuition fees and partly by endowment. These principals might establish a family, consisting of the two, who would take the place of parents toseveral adopted orphans and to several pay-pupils whose parents, from ill health or other causes, would relinquish the care of their children.
The collegiate schools might have endowed departments corresponding to professorships in colleges, each having a principal and associate principal, who also could establish families on the same plan. When completed, the university would then consist of a central building for school purposes, surrounded by fifteen or twenty families, each having a principal and associate principal, acting as parents to a family of from ten to twelve pupils, and all in some department of domestic training.
Thus some thirty or forty ladies of high character and culture would be provided with the independence and advantages now exclusively bestowed on men, while at the same time the institution would practically and to a considerable extent be an orphan asylum offering unusual advantages.
In regard to the practicability of finding women properly qualified to carry on such a university with success, there is no difficulty. Few know so well as I do how many women of benevolence andhigh culture are living with half their noblest energies unemployed for want of the opportunities and facilities provided for men. There is nothing needed butendowmentsto secure the services of a large number of ladies of the highest culture and moral worth, well qualified to establish not only one but many such institutions.
In my attempts to organize female institutions on the college plan of independent principals of endowed departments, responsible not to an individual but to a faculty and corporation, I have been met with objections that apply as much to colleges for men. The jealousies and jars incident to all complex institutions are the result of the frailties of humanity common to both sexes. I have, in a large number of instances, organized institutions on the college plan, which for years were conducted with perfect harmony, some of them are still prospering, and others were ended only for want of endowments to retain the highest class of teachers.