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 direct them 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 the _physical training_ of 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 training _in schools_, 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 for _moral 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
my family 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 the ignorant 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 at large 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 is _the
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 pipes involves still greater
difficulties, when no arrangement is made for carrying off the foul
air, inasmuch as it is the air _in_ the 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.
_Any_ room can be perfectly ventilated which has openings 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
much _greater 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 introducing _practical_ training for woman's domestic
duties _as 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 a _special_ training 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 a _mother's assistant_ in 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. _Every_ young 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 a _special_ training 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. And _every_ woman 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 and
disgraced, 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 my
_ideal_ for 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
to several 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 and high culture
are living with half their noblest energies unemployed for want of the
opportunities and facilities provided for men. There is nothing needed
but _endowments_ to 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.
AN ADDRESS TO LADIES OF HARTFORD, CONN.,
INVITED FROM ALL RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS;
DELIVERED AT THE
Calisthenic Hall of the Hartford Female Seminary,
MAY, 1871.
LADIES AND KIND FRIENDS:
At a former meeting I stated that, as former principal of this
Seminary, I so exhausted my nervous system that I have never been able
to assume responsibilities involving obligations which, by my failure,
would cause disappointment to others. My method, therefore, has been to
originate plans, and then induce others, more capable than myself, to
execute them, and in such a way that I could help without taking any
responsibility.
Thus I originated the plan for transferring teachers to the West,
executed by Gov. Slade. And thus also I organized the American
Women's Educational Association, for securing _endowed_ collegiate
and professional schools for women, which has established several
flourishing institutions at the West. The most important of these
is the Milwaukee Female College, which for more than fifteen years
has been conducted by the chief agent of this Association, Miss Mary
Mortimer; and which now numbers 180 pupils, and exhibits many of the
benefits of our plan, although only partially endowed. The object of
this meeting is to gain your influence in order to secure, not only
what has been gained at Milwaukee, but to accomplish the whole plan of
a fully endowed Woman's University, as the model which we hope to see
reproduced all over the nation.
In all these educational efforts, I have been led by a deep and painful
sense of the depressed and suffering condition of large portions of our
sex, and to an extent little realized by women in easy and prosperous
circumstances. I introduce here an extract from a published article of
mine that gives some small exhibition of these painful facts.
That there is something essentially wrong in the present
condition of women, is every year growing more and more
apparent, while the public mind is more and more perplexed with
diverse methods proposed for the remedy. In one of our leading
secular papers we read this statement of the case from the pen
of a working woman:
"There are so few departments of labor open to women,
that, in those departments, the supply of female labor
is frightfully in advance of the demand. The business
world offers the lowest wages to eager applicants,
certain that they will be ravenously clutched. And,
indeed, to see the mob of women that block and choke
these few and narrow gates open to them—the struggle—the
press—the agony—the trembling eagerness—you might
suppose they were entering the temple of fame or wealth,
or, at least had some cosy little cottage ahead, in
which competence awaited the winner. Nothing of the
sort. These are blind alleys, one and all. The mere
getting in, and keeping in, are the meagre objects of
this terrible struggle. A woman who has not _genius_,
or is not a _rare exception_, has no opening—no
promotion—no career. She turns hopelessly on a pivot;
at every turn the sand gives way, and she sinks lower.
At every turn light and air are more difficult, and
she turns and digs her own grave. Do you say these are
figures of speech? Here, then, are figures of _fact_.
There are _now thirty thousand_ women in New York, whose
labor averages from _twelve to fifteen hours a day_, and
yet whose income seldom exceeds _thirty-three cents a
day_. Operators on sewing-machines, and a few others,
enjoy comparative opulence, gaining five to eight
dollars a week, though from this are to be paid three or
four dollars for a bed in a wretched room with several
other occupants, often without a window or any provision
for pure air, and with only the poor food found where
such rooms abound. Thousands of ladies, of good family
and education, as teachers receive from two to six
hundred dollars a year. Few women get beyond that, and
a large proportion of them are mothers with children.
Over these poorly-paid laborers broods the sense of
hopeless toil. There is no bright future. The woman who
is fevered, hurried, and aching, who works from daylight
to midnight, loathing her mean room, her meaner dress,
her joyless life, will, in ten years, neither better
herself nor her children. The American working-woman
has no share in the American privilege given to the
poorest _male_ laborer—a growing income, a bank account,
and every office of the Republic, if he have brain and
courage to win them."
This describes the condition and feelings of not all, but of
a large class of women in many of our larger cities, who must
earn their own livelihood. But, in the medium classes, as it
respects wealth, the unmarried or widowed women feel that
they are an incumbrance to fathers and brothers, who often
unwillingly support them from pride or duty. For such, also,
there is "no opening—no promotion—no career;" and they must
remain dependent chiefly on the labor of others till marriage
is offered, which to vast numbers is a positive impossibility.
This has lately been proved, from the census, by a leading
New York paper. In that it is shown that, in all our large
cities, the male inhabitants, under fifteen and over the usual
marriageable age, are greatly in excess of the females, and,
consequently, the women at the marriageable age are greatly
in excess of the marriageable men. Thus, in New York City,
according to the statements of the _New York Times_, there are
eleven thousand more females than males, of all ages, while
there are one hundred and thirty-two thousand more women of
marriageable age than men of that age. This is perhaps a large
estimate, but the disproportion is at all events enormous.
And, in the rural districts of New York State, we find a
similar state of things; for the excess of females, of all
ages, is twenty-one thousand, while the excess of marriageable
women, if at the same ratio as that stated in New York City,
would be two hundred and sixty-three thousand. A similar state
of things will be seen in all our older States.
The most mournful feature in this case is the fact that
most of these women have never been trained for any kind of
business by which they can earn an independent livelihood. The
Working-woman's Protective Union, of New York City, reports
that, of thirteen thousand applicants, not one-half were
qualified to do any kind of useful work in a proper manner.
The societies that are formed to furnish work for poor women
report that their greatest impediment is that so few can sew
decently, or do any other work properly.
The heads of dress-making establishments report that very few
women can be found who can be trusted to complete a dress,
and that those who are competent find abundant work and good
wages. The demand for really superior mantua-makers is almost
universal in country places, and even in many of our cities.
In former days sewing was taught in all schools for girls, but
now it is banished from our common schools, and the mothers at
home are too neglectful, or too ignorant, or too pressed with
labor, to supply the deficiency.
It was reported in the _New York Tribune_, not long since, that
there are at least twenty thousand professed prostitutes in
New York City alone, while Boston, in proportion to its number
of inhabitants, shows a larger number, and all our cities
give similar reports. This, it is hoped is an estimate much
in excess of the reality; but the truth is mournful enough.
Multitudes of these unfortunates have only two alternatives—on
the one hand, poor lodgings, shabby dress, poor food, and
ceaseless daily toil from eight to ten or fifteen hours; on
the other hand, the tempter offers a pleasant home, a servant
to do the work, fine dress, the theatre and ball, and kind
attentions, with no labor or care. Where is the strength of
virtue in those who despise and avoid these outcasts, that
might not fall in such perilous assaults?