in our destructive war, and the emigration to new settlements where
early marriage is impracticable, and as the consequence, the census
shows hundreds of thousands of women who can never commence the family
state as wife and mother. This is the great emergency that agitates
society and forms the chief moral problem of our age. The question in
its simplest form is this, What is to be done to secure the highest
usefulness and happiness of _woman as a sex_, when marriage and the
family state are more and more passing away? Our customs and our laws
are all framed on the assumption that women are to be supported by
husbands to rear up families; and yet marriage and the family state
are more and more avoided. And what is the remedy to be sought? Will
the ballot relieve this difficulty? Can any laws be enforced that
will oblige men to marry? and if not, what are we to do to meet the
emergency?
In reply, I will first state some important facts developed here in
Massachusetts, where well-educated marriageable women most abound; not
in employments for which God designed them, but in shops and mills and
employment detrimental both to health and morals.
The report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities states that
the present mode of collecting special classes of the helpless, the
unfortunate, and the vicious into great establishments, managed by paid
agents, is not the best method to secure their physical, moral, and
social improvement, and that it involves many unfortunate influences.
Then it is suggested that the better way would be to scatter these
helpless and unfortunate ones in families of Christian people. Now,
as before stated, the family is God's mode of training our race to
self-denying love and labor; and the _Christian_ family, in contrast
to the worldly, is the one in which a small number is given to one or
two, who have the spirit of Christ and live as he lived, to labor for
others, and not for self-indulgent ease and worldly enjoyments.
Hundreds of Massachusetts women have this spirit of Christ and are
pining for this ministry, which is as sacred and as effective as that
of the church. Thousands of neglected orphans, or worse than orphans,
abound on every side. The homeless, the aged, the weak, the sick, and
the sinful, also, are all around us.
And how can truly Christian homes be established where there are no
young children to train, no aged persons to watch over, no invalids
to nurse, and no vicious to reclaim? Why are orphans thrown upon the
cold world, and why are the aged held in a useless, suffering life
except to furnish opportunities for Christian love and self-sacrifice?
Here is the problem for Massachusetts. Let her do for her daughters as
liberally as for her sons, and it will speedily be solved.
There are multitudes of women in unwomanly employments, who, if
educated to the scientific duties of a nurse for young infants and
their mothers, with all the advantages of high culture given to medical
men, and with the social honor accorded to high culture, would be
greeted in many a family, be sought as the most welcome benefactors of
the family state, and take a superior position to that now given to the
teachers of music, French, and drawing.
Again, there is no agent of the family state who has a more constant,
daily influence on the character of childhood than the one who shares
with a mother the cares of the nursery. And yet where shall we find an
institution in which young women are properly trained for these sacred
offices? The heir of an earthly kingdom is surrounded by the noblest
and the wisest, who deem the humblest office an honor in his service.
But the young heir of an immortal kingdom, whose career, not for a few
earthly days, but for eternal ages, is to be decided in this life, to
whom is he committed, and _where_ and _how_ were they trained for these
supernal duties? The bogs of Ireland—the shanty tenement-houses—the
plantation huts—the swarming, poverty-stricken wanderers from Europe,
China, and Japan are coming to reply!
The influx of wealth, the building of expensive houses demanding many
servants, and the increasing demands of social life, are changing
mothers from the educational training of their own offspring to the
training and care of servants; and yet, in our boarding-schools and
colleges for women, how much is done to train them for such duties?
When I read the curriculum of Vassar and other female colleges,
methinks their graduates by such a course as this will be as well
prepared to nurse the sick, train servants, take charge of infants, and
manage all departments of the family state, as they would be to make
and regulate chronometers, or to build and drive steam-engines.
The number of branches introduced into female schools has nearly
doubled since I commenced my school, while the real advantages gained
by this increase have been lessened. And as yet little or no progress
has been made in preparing women for the practical duties of their
profession. The expenses of most popular boarding-schools confine their
advantages to the rich, who do not aim to have daughters trained to do
woman's work, or to earn their own independence.
The evils that women suffer from the want of proper training for their
appropriate duties, few can fully realize. The Working-Woman's Union,
in New-York City, reports that of the 13,000 applicants for work, not
one half were qualified to any kind of work in a proper manner. The
societies for aiding poor women report as their greatest embarrassment
that but few can sew decently, or do any other work properly. The
heads of dress-making establishments complain that few can be found
who can be trusted to complete a dress properly, and say that those
properly trained find abundant work and good pay. The demand for good
mantua-makers in country towns is universal. In former days, plain
sewing was taught in schools; but now it is banished, and mothers are
too pressed with labor, or too negligent, to supply the deficiency.
In the middle classes, unmarried women and widows feel that they are
an incumbrance on fathers and brothers, who, from pride or duty, feel
bound to support them, and yet no openings offer for them to earn an
independence. Thousands of ladies of good families and good education,
with aged mothers or young children to support, can find either no
employments or those offering starvation wages. The school or the
boarding-house is the chief alternative for such persons; and yet every
opening for a school-teacher has scores, and sometimes hundreds of
applicants.
The factory-girls, and those in shops and stores, must stand six,
eight, or ten hours a day in bad air and unwholesome labor. The influx
of ignorant and uncleanly foreigners into our kitchens, and the
exactions of thriftless young housekeepers from boarding-schools, drive
self-respecting American women from many of our kitchens.
Meantime, in our more wealthy classes, those who have generous
and elevated aspirations feel that they have no object in life—no
profession, like their brothers, by which they can secure their own
independence, and aid in elevating others. Our young girls are trained
only for marriage; and when that fails, fathers and brothers forbid
their earning an independence, as implying disgrace to themselves.
The remedy for all this would soon be achieved were woman's work
elevated to an honorable and remunerative science and profession,
by the same methods that men have taken to elevate their various
professions. The establishment of _Woman's Universities_, in which
every girl shall secure as good a literary training as her brothers,
and then be trained to some profession adapted to her taste and
capacity, by which she can establish a home of her own, and secure an
independent income—_this_ is what every woman may justly claim and
labor for, as the shortest, surest, and safest mode of securing her own
highest usefulness and happiness, and that of her sex; a mode which
demands only what, if once achieved as practicable, every intelligent
and benevolent man would approve and delight to promote.
Here I feel bound to express dissent from the frequent implication that
men are alone responsible for the present disabilities and wrongs of
woman, owing to a selfish and tyrannical spirit not existing in my sex.
There is no nation in the world, and never has been one, in which all
classes of men were so trained to honor, protect, and provide for women
as in our own. On the contrary, women with us have been trained to
expect care and protection, and not to a chivalrous and tender regard
for their own sex, such as has been cultivated in brothers, fathers,
and husbands.
Moreover, women are trained to economy in details more than men, and
have not the free use of money as have those who earn family support.
As a consequence, when the raising of the wages of a school-teacher, or
the charges of a seamstress, or the pay of a cook is discussed, it is
often the case that women are no more ready than men thus to increase
the advantages of their sex.
In the matter of educational benefactions, women have given liberally
to endow colleges and professional schools for men; and it is a
remarkable fact that, if we except Roman Catholic nunneries, I know
not of even one case in this nation where a woman is supported as an
educator by an endowment given by a woman.
As previously indicated, the main causes of the evils that now press
on my sex are the want of appreciation of the honor and duties of the
family state, and the decrease of marriage, owing to war, emigration,
self-indulgence, and vices consequent on increase of civilization and
wealth.
There is every evidence that men are as sympathetic, and as anxious to
devise remedies for the evils complained of, as are our own sex; and
the impolitic and unjust manner in which they have been treated by some
who are generously laboring for the relief and elevation of woman, is
greatly to be regretted. In all my past efforts, I have depended mainly
on the powerful influence of my sex in gaining what was sought; for I
believe there is no benevolent plan, which is so approved by judicious
and benevolent women as to secure their earnest efforts, which will
not receive from fathers, brothers, and husbands all that is sought.
My only difficulty in the past has been to secure such appreciation
from my sex of the honor and duties of the family state, of the need
of scientific and practical training for these duties, as would secure
their earnest attention, influence, and efforts.
While I would urge these views on the attention of all women who have
any influence, I beg leave to suggest other modes by which the same
ends may be promoted. Thus, every cultivated woman who dignifies
domestic labor, by living in such a style as enables her to work
herself, and to train her sons and daughters to work with her, is a
co-laborer in this beneficent enterprise. Every woman who goes to her
kitchen in the spirit of Christ, by self-denying efforts to train her
servants to intelligence, honesty, and benevolence, is another blessed
laborer on the same field. Every young lady who seeks to impart some
of her advantages to those who labor in her service will be preparing
to hear from their and her Lord, "Inasmuch as ye did it to these the
least of my brethren, ye did it to me." Every school-teacher who
trains her pupils to value home labor, and to learn to do all woman's
proper work in the best manner, is also a minister of good to the
family state. Every woman who uses her influence to introduce sewing
into public schools, or to establish sewing-schools among the poor, is
another co-laborer for the same high aim. Every woman who can bring the
views here presented to the notice of wealthy and influential men and
women, may be sowing seed that will yield rich fruits even for ages to
come, by endowments secured through such quiet influences.
_A Woman's University_, that will realize the ideal aimed at, may,
perhaps, come by no sudden growth, but by many experiments in different
fields and diverse departments, each aiding to advance every other,
till all eventually will be combined in a harmonious and perfected
result. And for this consummation my good friend and opponent is as
ready to labor as those of us who have not her courage and hopes as to
the results of woman suffrage.
I stated that I have resumed the charge of the seminary I founded forty
years ago, to teach the higher branches, with Mrs. Stowe, then, as
now, my associate. We began when women were trained to domestic labor,
and almost nothing else. We have seen the pendulum swing to the other
extreme, till, both in families and schools, women are taught the
higher branches, and almost nothing else. We now begin at the other
end, and, by the aid and counsel of the judicious women of Hartford, we
hope to set an example of a woman's university which shall combine the
highest intellectual culture with the highest practical skill in all
the distinctive duties of womanhood.
Our good friends of the women suffrage cause often liken their
agitation to that which ended the slavery of a whole race doomed to
unrequited toil for selfish, cruel masters. When so many men are
toiling to keep daughters, wives, and mothers from any kind of toil, it
is difficult to trace the resemblance.
Moreover, we of the other side are believers in slavery, and we mean to
establish it all over the land. We mean to force men to resign their
gold, and even to forge chains for themselves with it; and when we
have trained their fair and rosy daughters, we will enforce a "Pink
and White Tyranny" more stringent than any other earthly thraldom. And
we will make our slaves work, and work from early dawn to dark night,
under the Great Task-master, the Lord of love and happiness, until
every one on earth shall fear him, as "the beginning of wisdom;" and
then "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God," as the whole
end and perfection of man.
For want of time, only a part of this address was delivered at
the Boston Music Hall. Mrs. Livermore followed, and at Note A
are remarks in reply to some of hers. What follows will present
further views on the subject of Woman's Profession.
After resigning the charge of the Hartford Female Seminary, many
circumstances combined to give me unusual facilities for observing
educational influences in various institutions for both sexes.
Continued ill health led to extensive travels, and to protracted
visits to a widely dispersed family and to former pupils settled in
every section of the country. My father was president of a theological
seminary, and my brother-in-law has been professor in two colleges
and one theological seminary. One brother was valedictorian and tutor
at Yale, and then president of one of the first Western colleges. Six
brothers were educated in five different colleges, and thirteen nephews
were students in six different colleges. Thirty-four nieces and nephews
have been connected with a great number of different boarding-schools
as scholars or teachers, while several hundred of my former pupils have
been teachers or pupils in almost every State of the Union, and have
extensively reported to me their experiences and observations.
I have also been connected with two organizations for establishing
schools and female colleges in such a way as to make it a part of my
duties to select teachers for schools and to organize faculties for
large female institutions.
These opportunities, extended over a period of nearly forty years, have
secured principles and conclusions of such importance as warrants not
only general statements, but some details to illustrate.
A fundamental principle thus gained is, that the school should be an
appendage of the family state, and modeled on its primary principle,
which is, _to train the ignorant and weak by self-sacrificing labor and
love; and to bestow the most on the weakest, the most undeveloped, and
the most sinful_.
It is exactly the opposite course to which teachers are most tempted.
The bright, the good, the industrious are those whom it is most
agreeable to teach, who win most affection, and who most promote the
reputation of a teacher and of a school or college. To follow this
principle, therefore, demands more clear views of duty and more
self-denying benevolence than ordinarily abound.
Moreover, the common practice of schools and colleges is, after a
certain amount of trial, to turn out those who are too dull to reach a
given line of scholarship, or too mischievous to conform to rules. It
is assumed that the interests of the more intelligent and docile are
to override those of the stupid and disobedient, and that schools and
colleges are not to adopt the great principle illustrated in the story
of the prodigal son, the strayed lamb, and the heavenly joy over one
that was lost more than over the ninety and nine that went not astray.
The results of attempts to carry out this divine principle in school
management, in my earlier years, were very encouraging. The frequent
teachers' meetings were made the means of discovering the intellectual
and moral deficiencies of each pupil, and then the difficult cases were
apportioned to the care and watch of the several teachers, according to
their adaptation to the duty assigned. Each was to consult and devise
methods, report to me, and to receive counsel from me as to further
measures. A few specific cases will illustrate some results.
For example, one of our best pupils and very intelligent in certain
directions, was reported as utterly incapable of understanding the
reasoning process in geometry. After experiments for more than a year,
this pupil became not only one of our best mathematical scholars, but
one of our most successful teachers in that study.
In another case, the pupil was one of a numerous class that have
imagination and fancy undeveloped and apparently wanting, having little
or no appreciation of poetry, fine writing, or works of imagination.
A long course of discipline and practice so developed these dormant
powers that this pupil not only became an admirer and critic of poetry
and fine writing, but presented, as her closing public exercise, a
specimen of poetry, devised and completed without aid, which would
favorably compare with half of that which is written and admired in our
current literature.
In other cases, in my school and among my friends, I have noticed
that, while some children have all the mental faculties equally
developed, others appear to possess small capacities, except in one
or two directions, which in some cases are prominent and in others so
undeveloped as to appear wanting.
For example, the son of a dear friend had been trained by good teachers
and sent to a first-class college, where every ordinary method was
employed to carry him through with at least moderate respectability,
and all proved an utter failure. The young man was then placed with a
good private teacher, who, after repeated experiments, ascertained that
in certain directions the mental faculties were above mediocrity, but
in points not reached by college training. Another method was adopted,
and the result was, that the young man became distinguished in one
branch of practical science, and eventually a popular and successful
professor in a scientific school.
In treating both intellectual and moral deficiencies, great attention
and care are demanded, so as not to deal with the willing but weak
as with the careless or mischievous. Both efforts demand the labor
of self-sacrificing love, and the rewards for such efforts have been
witnessed in such abundance as to cause great regret that so seldom our
higher schools and colleges aim at such results.
Another very important principle, especially in the training of women,
is, that the duties of the family state, as performed when parents and
children are united in domestic labors, have a direct and very decided
influence in training the intellectual powers.
In such families, the first-born, especially if a daughter, begins
almost in infant days to aid the mother in the care of the younger.
Discretion, quickness, invention, and many other faculties are
cultivated in the care of the little one, in regulating its caprices
and controlling its mischievous impulses. She learns to wash and dress
a younger child, to execute contrivances for its amusement, to regulate
its habits, and to aid as a teacher in its first school lessons. She is
trained to sew, mend, and to make family clothing, and then to aid in
teaching these arts to the younger. The first rudiments of culture in
the fine arts commence when assisting in ornamenting garden and parlor
with flowers and with various contrivances. She learns to cook food,
and to understand the varieties and the modes of preservation. And so
of many other household duties which demand quickness of apprehension,
discretion, energy, and perseverance. It is an unconscious intellectual
training, usually enforced by limited means, and insuring benefits
which the offspring of the rich rarely enjoy.
It is on this principle that Frobel arranged his system of the
Kindergarten, which develops many mental faculties and trains to
intellectual exercises before book knowledge is sought, chiefly by
exercises that cultivate taste, ingenuity, contrivance, and skill in
the use of the hand and eye.
The early training in my own personal and family history is a
remarkable illustration of this principle. This was at a time when
book-learning for the young was at its lowest stage. The whole of
my childhood was a play-spell, where my chief contrivances were to
avoid all kinds of confinement to study, or any kind of intellectual
taxation, except in practical employments, for which happily I had a
decided taste.
The death of a wise and tender mother at sixteen, and the consequent
responsibilities that came on the eldest of eight children, still
further developed the intellectual powers which are cultivated in
domestic employments. But school duties were never relished, except as
opportunities of furnishing merriment and various amusing contrivances
for escaping study. No discipline by book knowledge was gained, and no
reading attempted except in works of imagination.
It was not till school-days were over, that the discipline of sorrow,
and the consequent forces of religion, sobered an exuberant nature and
led to preparation for the office of a teacher.
Then, for the first time, commenced a training in book knowledge
under the care of a college-trained brother, and then a few months
accomplished what, with most school-girls, demands as many years. And
this speed and success were secured by aid of faculties developed
and strengthened chiefly by domestic training, together with the
conversation and intellectual influence of the parents and family
friends who were my educators.
The mental history of these family friends is an additional
illustration of this principle. My father had a college education; my
mother and an aunt, who was a member of our family, had only that of
a country home, when reading, writing, and arithmetic were the only
branches in children's schools. My mother had a natural taste for
profound investigation, and, with no aid but a small encyclopedia,
performed some remarkable mathematical calculations where my father was
helpless. But apparently she had no talent for poetry or fine writing,
though having a high appreciation of both. On the contrary, my aunt was
a fine writer, and composed poetry of a high order. Both the ladies
were extensive readers of the best English classics, much more so than
my father.
And now in my recollections of home discussions, and of the admiration
universally accorded to my mother's intellectual gifts, I should say
that by the 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.