the fortune which a father bequeaths to his son to-day may be totally
consumed by some sudden revolution in commerce to-morrow, the only
unalienable property which can be bestowed upon our children is an
unblemished name and a good education. Under such a government as ours
the latter is indispensable. Ours has been called a nation of kings; and
when we reflect on the incalculable mischief which is daily effected in
less happy countries by unenlightened rulers and an ignorant populace,
we may form some idea of the evils which would result from an uninformed
and uneducated _sovereign people_. The little boy who climbs his father’s
knee and lisps his infantile prattle into his delighted ear may be called
at some future period to direct the destinies of a large portion of our
fellow-countrymen. The path to distinction is open to all, however lowly
their station; for the aristocracy of talent is the only aristocracy
which Americans acknowledge; and this we cannot reject, since it bears
Heaven’s own signet on its patent of nobility. Is it not absolutely
essential, then, that the heart and mind of every child in the community
should be objects of earnest solicitude to every patriotic bosom? “The
old systems of education are good for nothing,” said the First Consul of
France to Madame Campan, when he visited the school under her direction.
“What is yet requisite in order that young persons may be well educated
in France?” continued he. “_Mothers_,” was the emphatic reply. “True,
madame,” answered Napoleon; “let Frenchmen, therefore, acknowledge their
obligation to you as having been the first to educate mothers for their
children.” Napoleon well knew that the only materials out of which a
mighty nation could be formed were rational, enlightened, educated men;
and the importance of female influence in early life could not possibly
escape the penetration of such an adept in human nature.
Let me not be misunderstood when I thus earnestly insist upon the
necessity of female education. I do not mean that our daughters should
be rendered capable of becoming teachers of classical literature or
professors of the sciences; but I would have them intimately acquainted
with all _useful_ branches of human knowledge. I would have them
sufficiently versed in the learning of the ancients to be able to lay
the foundation of a classical education in their sons; I would have them
so skilled in those elegant arts which form the embellishment of life,
that they may be able to improve to the utmost the developing tastes of
their daughters; and, above all, I would have them deeply and thoroughly
imbued with the knowledge of the Scriptures—the wisdom which cometh from
above—the pure and holy and liberal principles of that religion whose
founder was the Redeemer of a world.
The duty of a mother is indeed an arduous one; but its very difficulty
renders it incapable of being transferred to other hands. To struggle
with the untamed passions of human nature—those passions whose early
development affords the most convincing proof that the heart of the
natural man is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;” to
arouse the spirit of useful inquiry in the infant mind; to direct that
inquiry to subjects which may purify the heart and elevate the intellect;
to impart the first notions of a Deity, and afterwards to improve those
vague ideas into a love and reverence for the bountiful Creator and Ruler
of the universe—these are tasks of which no father, however affectionate,
is capable. They require woman’s opportunities, woman’s tact, woman’s
delicacy; and, may I not add, the peculiar devotedness of woman’s
affection?
“There is none,
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, like that within
A mother’s heart. There’s too much pride, wherewith
To his fair son the father’s eye doth turn,
Watching his growth. Aye, on the boy he looks,
The bright glad creature springing in his path,
But as the heir of his great name—the young
And stately tree; whose rising strength ere long
Shall bear his trophies well—and this is love!
This is _man’s_ love!—what marvel?—_you_ ne’er made
Your breast the pillow of his infancy,
While to the fulness of your heart’s glad heavings
His fair cheek rose and fell; and his bright hair
Waved softly to your breath!—_you_ ne’er kept watch
Beside him, till the last pale star had set,
And morn, all dazzling, as in triumph, broke
On your dim weary eyes;—not _yours_ the face
That, early faded through fond care of him,
Hung o’er his sleep, and, duly as Heaven’s light,
Was there to greet his wakening!—_you_ ne’er smoothed
His couch, ne’er sung him to his rosy rest,
Caught his least whisper, when his voice from yours
Had learned soft utterance; pressed your lips to his,
When fever parched it; hushed his wayward cries
With patient, vigilant, never wearied love!
No, these are woman’s tasks!”
Mrs. Hemans.
But these are not all. Were a mother’s cares confined to the mere
_physical_ welfare of her sons, too often in later life, when she saw
the objects of her solicitude swallowed up in the ever yawning vortex
of vice, would she be compelled to exclaim, with all the bitterness of
disappointment,
“My boys! my boys!
Hath vain affection borne with all for _this_?
Why were ye given me?...”
It is not so—her duties are of a higher order. Beautiful as is the
picture of woman’s tenderness which I have just presented to you, it
was far exceeded in moral beauty by the exquisite description of an
enlightened and pious mother, which not long ago was uttered within these
very walls,[1] by lips that seemed touched with “a live coal from the
altar.” If it be true that the noblest being in the scale of creation is
he who has the greatest number of duties to perform, then well may woman
rejoice in the dignity of her station; but let her joy be mingled with
“fear and trembling,” and let her so perform her allotted task that in
the day when all must be summoned before the bar of God she may be able
to say, in the emphatic words of Scripture, “Behold, here am I, Lord,
with the children which thou hast given me.”
If such are the arduous duties of a mother, what should be the measure of
gratitude which she has a right to claim from her children? It is a debt
like that we owe to Heaven—the day of our death finds it yet uncancelled.
To you, my young friends, I would address myself in the language of deep
and earnest interest. You are now at that delightful period of life which
is like spring among the seasons, redolent of beauty and freshness, and
giving fair promise of the rich fruits of maturer years. Take heed the
young blossoms be not blighted. Call to mind the countless advantages
which have been bestowed on you; reflect upon the anxious solicitude of
the fathers who wait to see you the objects of their pride as well as
the sources of their happiness; remember the cares, the exertions, the
almost heart-breaking anxiety of the mothers who have guided your infant
feet to the threshold of the temple of knowledge, and then press forward
“in the race set before you.” You are entering upon a noble career. The
pure and elevated and holy duties which are peculiarly a woman’s will
soon claim your undivided attention. Let me pray you, therefore, so to
discipline your hearts, so to cultivate your minds, so to purify your
spirits now, during the unbroken leisure of youth, that the hour of trial
may find you “with your lamps trimmed and burning.” You have begun well;
go on, then, in the same course and remember that “of those to whom much
is given, much will be required;” and that genius and knowledge, while
they lay claim to the highest honors which man can bestow, also bear with
them the highest responsibilities both to God and man. Science is now
opening to you her richest store of honor and usefulness, and the prayers
of parents and friends are following you when you are utterly unconscious
of them. Pause, then—in the cool freshness of the morning of life, before
you wax faint in the noonday heats—pause and form for yourselves the
noble resolutions which should direct your future life. Look back through
the shadowy vista of past years, and behold what are the foundations of
the most lasting honors of men. Look forward with the eye of faith to
the glories of the promised land; and while you weigh well the different
results of moral conduct, take heed that ye “keep your hearts with all
diligence, for out of them are the issues of life.” Form your taste on
the classics, your judgment on the sciences, and your principles on the
book of all truth. Let the dawn of your being be hallowed by that pure
devotion which is ever an “offering of a sweet smelling savor” to the
bounteous giver of all good. Let the first-fruits of your intellect be
laid before the altar of _Him_ who breathed into your nostrils the breath
of life, and with that breath a portion of His exalted spirit; and while
your life furnishes the most striking illustration of the benefits of
education, let it be your care so to persevere unto the end that it may
be said of each in her own peculiar sphere, “Many daughters have done
virtuously, but thou excellest them all.”
1831.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This address was read in St. Ann’s Church, Brooklyn.
THE COLLEGIATE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
BY PROFESSOR MARIA MITCHELL, VASSAR COLLEGE.
This paper was read at the Congress of the Association for the
Advancement of Women, held in Boston, October, 1880.
Some years since I met, in travelling, an intelligent gentleman who
was interested in the cause of education. It is good to get away from
your native latitude, even if the polestar is lower. I listened with
great interest to the expression of his views, which were based upon
surroundings unlike my own. He enlarged upon the advantage to the country
which would result from a great national university, and he described
it in glowing colors. “I would have it cost,” he said, “not tens of
millions, but hundreds of millions.” “For both boys and girls,” I said,
quietly. He paused a minute, and then said, as if to himself, “Well—I had
not thought of the girls.” And he had daughters only! Let us think of
the girls.
WHOM SHALL WE HELP TO A COLLEGIATE EDUCATION?
Our colleges are at present adapted to what in England would be called
the “upper middle class.” Can we extend their opportunities to a
larger number? We cannot put _every_ girl through a college course. In
the more enlightened States elementary education is compulsory, and
(theoretically) every child is taught to read and to write. To watch the
public schools; to foster interest in the subject of education; to vote
for the best persons, men or women, as guardians of these schools—these
are our duties to _all_ classes, but more especially to the _very_
poor, to whom no other schools can open. We cannot in this age make the
public school a college, although it would be well if every State, like
Massachusetts, gave to the few who intend to enter college the necessary
instruction in preparatory studies. To my question, “_Whom shall we help
to collegiate education?_” I should answer:
_First._ Do not attempt to put the daughters of the _very_ poor through
a college course. It is barely possible that a rare genius may be found
even among the unworthy poor, but the chance is so small that we shall
waste time in looking for it. We cannot hurry the processes of nature. We
may by rearrangements and modifications change the conditions into which
we are born, but we cannot escape them. The tree of slowest growth is the
_family_ tree; if you examine that on one of whose branches some great
name hangs, you will find that it had no mushroom growth, that its rings
can be counted by hundreds.
_Second._ I should say, also, Do not aid the sickly girl to enter
college. Harm has already been done in this way. As in earlier days the
feeble boy was trained for the pulpit, so there is to-day some tendency
to send a sickly girl to college—partly because our girls’ colleges are
governed by so good sanitary laws. I should dissuade the delicate girl
from the attempt to take a regular college course. Let her study in the
open air! Let her take a regular course of study in out-of-door practical
sciences—botany, geology, mineralogy. Let her exchange the crochet-needle
for the needle of the surveyor’s compass. The study of nature must
be study with nature; if it requires one hour with books, this may be
followed by two hours spent in hunting an insect in green fields, or in
gathering shells from sea-washed rocks.
I should suppose that a summer science school for girls would be a good
institution. Let a number of students club together, and establishing
themselves in a healthy and unfashionable place, study its natural
history. Such education would be fragmentary, but a little of science
is as valuable for development as a little of the classics, or a little
of mathematics; and the theory of to-day is, “Taste, even if you cannot
drink deeply.”
Knowing well-born, well-bred, and healthy young girls who are prepared
to enter college, and whose means are not quite adequate, let us help
_them_. But the hand should not go to the pocket without some direction
from the head. I say let us help _them_, for I deplore the rash impulse
to take up one bright girl and carry her through a college course by
other means than those of her parents or relatives. We take her from the
very struggle which she needs for her growth. She learns to expect to be
held up, and she ceases to stand upright. I believe a girl loses her
nicety in morals who looks around to see who is coming to her rescue! She
owes, without a thought of payment.
Do not aid by founding prizes. You then add an artificial struggle to
that which is healthy and invigorating. If possible, aid by giving manual
labor, but let it be such as shall be educating. When we talk of manual
labor for girls, we seem always to mean household duties. A college
student can often make herself useful by copying for professors, or by
tutoring slow pupils, as well as by less pleasing domestic work. I think
young girls at colleges where land is allotted to them for cultivation
might raise and sell flowers and seeds. Form for any young girl a habit
of earning money, and you give her a lifelong advantage. I consider
it one of my duties to the young women who come into my department to
encourage a respect for remunerative occupation. Why should girls be
brought up with an idea that _paid_ labor is _ignoble_?
If you cannot give to a good girl a chance to work her way through
college, give money into her hands. Do not help her by buying her
books, by paying her bills, or by bestowing unsuitable costume. Let her
learn the value of money. Most girls would prefer a loan, and the very
carefulness to repay a loan would be a check to unnecessary expense. But
as some very sensible girls are timid about a loan, I should say, “Give,”
but give just the amount sufficient to bridge over the difficult place;
do not make the journey ruinously easy. Our Vassar girls receive aid from
a fund left by the founder of the college. Many of them return it as soon
as they are able, for the use of the coming classes. It is small, and
but few can receive it in one year. I would increase the number who can
receive, rather than the amount to each student.
This direct aid given to certain students by individuals is good, but it
is limited to exceptional cases. We reverse the order of nature. We are
careful of the single life, we are careless of the type.
HOW SHALL WE MAKE THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN STILL HIGHER?
I never look at a group of teachers such as are employed in the colleges
for girls but I am reminded of the expression of St. Ambrose: “The noble
army of martyrs.” The work of a teacher should be such as does not kill,
for the value of human life is quite as great in the case of the teacher
as in that of the student.
The pleasant smile with which a young teacher greets her class as she
enters upon her duties should become more serene, more inspiring at
middle life. But how can it be? I find that the number of students to
one teacher is usually fifty! The amount of work that teachers do is
enormous. There seems to be no “getting through.” They work five or six
hours a day, and then take to their rooms the written examinations and
problems for their evening recreation. Besides, a good teacher does
infinitely higher work outside of tutorial hours. I have sometimes looked
at the variety of work done for some young girl—the careful watching over
her health, the good counsel given in morals, the patient endurance with
loose mental habits—and I have said to myself, “How little that parent
knows the enormous return which he gets for his moneyed investment!”
We are constantly told that too many women become teachers. Yes; but
the number would not be too great if fewer students were put into the
hands of one teacher. A teacher should not cease to be a student; she
cannot, with safety; she should have time for new acquisitions. I would
not say, give time by lengthening vacations; but I would say, give time
by lessening the number of students. A young girl needs the companionship
in her classes of a few, but the teacher should know each pupil
individually. According to my own idea, the proper number for good class
work is ten; but when I asked a professor of Cornell how many he thought
best for class and professor, he said, “Four.” Given a small class and a
teacher of any magnetism, and there need be no required attendance.
A large class requires much routine work to enable it to move without
friction, and to some persons the precision of military drill is the
poetry of motion. I mourn over any loss of individuality.
We should increase the number of teachers by lessening the number of
students to each, and diminish the number by retiring the old and
worn-out. In New York State a judge is retired at seventy, but a
professor in a college may have a life tenure. The retired teacher should
be pensioned. It is a great wrong to students to retain the incompetent
teacher who would gladly rest; it is base and cruel to turn off the old
teacher penniless. I have known a woman whom every one respected and
whose pupils loved her, to retire, after forty years of labor in one
school, without even the small purse and small speech usually proffered
to the cast-off clergyman. And this in Massachusetts.
Our colleges are too expensive for the class which most needs them. We
ought to reach the large middle class. We do not. From the great City of
New York there are usually ten students in Vassar College; and as many
from New York are at Vassar as at any other college. If we take out of
New York life those for whom Europe is the college, those for whom the
workshop is the university, those for whom society is the universe, we
still have an enormous residuum of young women who should be studying.
For these our colleges are too expensive. The cost of a girl’s education
is much greater than that of a boy. Why should it be so? Why should not
girls club together, board themselves in a wholesome and inexpensive way,
obtain some light employment which will add to their means, and dress for
almost nothing? I touch the subject of expense in dress with a sinking
heart, for I know that no party is with me; I stand almost alone. We
need organized missionary work on the subject. Young women say, “It is
our duty to look pretty;” and one would suppose, from the attention paid
to it, that it was the _highest_ duty. In the very homes whose walls
are unadorned with pictures and whose book-shelves contain no standard
works, the wardrobe is defended on æsthetic grounds. I have visited in
the houses of English noblemen whose daughters would be shocked at the
expensiveness of the college and school costumes of the daughters of our
ordinary mechanics. This is a question of _taste_ only. But what shall
we say of that family in which the personal decoration continues to be
costly after financial reverse has come to its head?
I hope the time will come when colleges will be able to give up the
pomps and parades of public days. Why should the conferring of degrees
at commencement be heralded by noisy music? Is the college commencement
a _necessary_ evil? Girls need no stimulus to work. The commencement
ceremonies are in the thoughts of an ambitious girl from the time she
enters college until she graduates. The “part” at commencement haunts
her; the college degree, she feels, is sure; but for the sake of the
loved ones at home she hopes and works and prays for what she considers
the “honor.” Is it a healthy influence?
There can be no other motive for great gatherings at colleges than that
of indirect advertising. The guests who come to the college see nothing
of its methods of working; they see the college building and its inmates
in full dress; they know nothing of the unremitting, hard, conscientious
study which is done behind the scenes.
When we have done all that we can to lessen the expense inside the walls
of the college—when those of us who have longed for college education,
and to whom it has been denied for want of means, contribute our small
aids—but little has been done towards bringing the colleges within the
reach of the large middle class which needs them.
What our colleges need is _endowment_. But I would not have it take the
shape of buildings. Buildings should come as they are called for, and
be adapted to the call. Our colleges should not be monuments to the
dead, but workshops for the living. There is no beauty in unfitness.
There stands on Calton Hill, in Edinburgh, a temple which would delight
the heart of an old Greek by its architectural beauty. It is the
astronomical observatory, and every classic ornament hides the height of
the stars from the observer.
Thirty years ago I heard Professor Henry say that what he had needed was
a simple office, and the Government had put him into the Smithsonian
Institute. There is a story of a distinguished chemist, who, when a
visitor asked to be shown his laboratory, turned to the servant and said,
“John, bring in the laboratory,” and it was brought in on a waiter. I
know two buildings for educational purposes which are exactly adapted
to the demand of the hour. Both were built by women. The first is the
Woman’s Laboratory in Boston, where every cent has been spent for science
and the investigations of science. The second is the building of the
School of Philosophy at Concord. It is a plain one-story building; its
outward decoration the vine which creeps up its unpainted sides; its only
music the song of birds. It shelters the summer philosophers; its lookout
from the numerous windows is inspiring, its ventilation is excellent.
What our colleges need is such endowment as shall bring them within the
reach of the large middle class. The amount of money given to girls’
colleges is pitiably small. The endowment of all the girls’ colleges put
together does not come up to that of Harvard alone. Why are _not_ our
colleges endowed? Because our people do not quite believe in that kind of
education for boys; in the case of girls there is positive disbelief; the
tone of the Press is against it.
A New York editor once said to me, “The highest duty of a woman is to be
ornamental in the parlor.” He forgot that the majority of women have no
parlors. I take up at random newspaper scraps, and I read:
“Last year twelve persons in the United States gave an aggregate of
$3,000,000 to foreign missions.”
“Mr. S—— gives $25,000 for charitable, benevolent, and educational
purposes in this country.”
These scraps do not unfairly represent the ratio of interest felt
for foreign missions and home schools; very rarely is anything given
directly for the education of girls. It would be well if something of
the missionary’s spirit and the revivalist’s zeal came into our staid
and decorous methods of dealing with educational subjects. To my view,
the admission of women to school suffrage in Massachusetts is a very
great gain to the cause of education. Perhaps it is larger to me because
I am far off, thus inverting the law of optics; for I hear it spoken
of as _small gain_ in Massachusetts. But it is eventually the gain of
all that we ask for women; it is the beginning, and the best beginning.
All that women ask for is the enlightenment of our present rulers; the
foreign-born boy takes a lesson indirectly from the women who as school
committee visit the school. Massachusetts was better prepared for school
suffrage than New York can be for a long time. The women’s clubs had led
the way. The community had become accustomed to hearing from women, had
learned to value the opinions of women; the suffrage movement had reached
the ears of women; the temperance movement had gone to their hearts;
women had already become the leading orators; it was comparatively a
little thing to drop a ballot into a box. When all the women of the
land are roused to an interest in the public schools, the “hundreds
of millions” for women’s colleges, or for men’s colleges, or for both
together, will not be wanting.
A NEW KNOCK AT AN OLD DOOR.
BY LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE.
In my morning journal stand five solid columns of advertisements of
girls’ schools. “It is fit,” says Mr. Samuel Pepys, speaking of some new
gown bought for his wife, “that the poor wretch should have something
wherewith to content her.” But it would seem that some hundreds of New
York wives refuse to content themselves with these manifold educational
concessions of the Pepysian spirit. For beside the journal lies a
petition, very fully signed, a large proportion of names being those of
women, which reads: