the fact that crime increases faster among women than among
men. Thus, in Massachusetts, during the last ten years, among
the men of that State, crime _decreased_ at the rate of eight
thousand five hundred and seven less than during the ten
preceding years, while, among women, crime _increased_ at the
rate of three hundred and sixty-eight during the same period;
that is, over eight thousand _less_ men, and over three hundred
_more_ women, were guilty of crime than in the previous ten
years.
But, turning from these to the daughters of the most wealthy
class, those who have generous and elevated aspirations also
feel that for them, too, there is "no opening—no promotion—no
career," except that of marriage, and for this they are trained
to feel that it is disgraceful to seek. They have nothing to
do but wait to be sought. Trained to believe marriage their
highest boon, they are disgraced for seeking it, and must
affect indifference.
Meantime, to do any thing to earn their own independence is
what father and brothers would deem a disgrace to themselves
and their family. For women of high position to work for their
livelihood, in most cases custom decrees as disgraceful. And
then, if cast down by poverty, they have been trained to
nothing that would earn a support, or, if by chance they have
some resource, all avenues for its employment are thronged
with needy applicants. Ordinarily, and with few exceptions,
there are only two employments for such women that do not
involve loss of social position, viz., school-teaching and
boarding.
But every opening for a school-teacher has scores, and
sometimes hundreds, of applicants, while often the protracted
toils in unventilated and crowded school rooms destroy health.
To keep boarders demands capital to start, and an experience
and training in household management and economy rarely taught
to the daughters of wealth. In this country housework is
dishonorable, and rich men make no attempts to train their
daughters to any other business that would be a resort in
poverty.
Few can realize the perils which threaten our country from the
present condition of women. The grand instrumentality, not only
for perpetuating our race, but for its training to eternal
blessedness, is the family state, and in this woman is the
chief minister. As the general rule, man is the laborer out
of the home, to provide for its support, while woman is the
daily minister to train its inmates. But there are now many
fatal influences that combine to unfit her for these sacred
duties. Not the least of these is the decay of female health,
engendering irritable nerves in both mother and offspring, and
thus greatly increasing the difficulties of physical and still
more of moral training.
The factory girls, and many also in shops and stores, must
stand eight and ten hours a day, often in a poisonous
atmosphere, causing decay of constitution, and forbidding
healthful offspring. The sewing-machine lessens the wages of
needlewomen, while employers testify that those who use it
for steady work become hopelessly diseased, and cannot rear
healthy children. In the more wealthy circles, the murderous
fashions of dress make terrible havoc with the health of young
girls, while impure air, unhealthful food and condiments, lack
of exercise, and over-stimulation of brain and nerves, are
completing the ruin of health and family hopes.
The state of domestic service is another element that is
undermining the family state. Disgraced by the stigma of our
late slavery, and by the influx into our kitchens of ignorant
and uncleanly foreigners, American women forsake home circles
for the unhealthful shops and mills.
Then the thriftless young housekeepers from boarding-school
life have no ability either to teach or to control their
incompetent assistants, while ceaseless "worries" multiply in
parlor, nursery, and kitchen. The husband is discouraged by the
waste and extravagance, and wearied with endless complaints,
and home becomes any thing but the harbor of comfort and peace.
Add to all this, the now common practice which destroys
maternal health and unborn offspring—the loose teachings
of free love—the unfortunate influence of spiritualism, so
called—the fascinations of the _demi-monde_ for the rich, and
of lower haunts for the rest, with the poverty of thousands
of women who but for desperate temptations would be pure, and
the extent of the malign influences undermining the family
state—that chief hope of our race—is appalling.
Woman, in the Protestant world, is educated only _for
marriage_, hoping to have some one to work for her support,
and, when this is not gained, little else is provided.
The Roman Catholic Church, while it honored the institution of
marriage as a sacrament, and upheld its sanctity, yet taught
that woman had a still higher ministry; and for this, large
endowments, comfortable positions, and honorable distinction,
were provided. The women who devoted their time and wealth and
labors to orphans, to the sick, and to the poor, were honored
above married women as _saints_, who not only laid up treasures
in heaven for themselves, but also a stock of _merits_ to
supply the deficiencies of others. The idea of self-sacrifice
and self-denial in that church was so honored as to run into
mischievous extremes, so that rich establishments of celibates
of both sexes multiplied all over Christendom till they became
burdens and pests.
This drove the Protestant world to the other extreme, so that
no provision at all has been made for the single woman. In
most cases she must marry, or have no profession that leads to
independence, honor, and wealth. To fit young men for their
professions, thousands and millions are every year provided,
securing by endowments the highest class of teachers, in
addition to every advantage of libraries, apparatus, and
buildings. But woman's profession has no such provisions made
for its elevated duties.
In the Roman Catholic Church the woman of high position,
culture, and benevolence, is honored above all others if she
remains single and devotes her time and wealth to orphans, to
nurse the sick, to reclaim the vicious, and to provide for
the destitute. She becomes a lady abbess, or the head of some
sisterhood, where high position, influence, and honor, are her
reward.
And the priesthood of that Church employ all their personal and
official influence to lead women of benevolence and piety to
devote time, property, and prayers, to the salvation of their
fellow-creatures from diseases of body, ignorance, and sin.
But Protestant women, as yet, have been influenced to endow
institutions for _men_, rather than for their own sex. The
writer obtained from the treasurers of only six institutions
for men the following statement of benefactions from women:
Miss Plummer, to Cambridge University, to endow one
professorship, gave $25,000; Mary Townsend, for the same,
$25,000; Sarah Jackson, for the same, $10,000; other ladies,
in sums over $1,000, to the same, over $30,000. To Andover
Professional School of Theology ladies have given over $65,000,
and, of this, $30,000 by one lady. In Illinois, Mrs. Garretson
has given to one professional school $300,000. In Albany,
Mrs. Dudlay has given, for a scientific institution for men,
$105,000. To Beloit College, Wisconsin, property has been
given, by one lady, valued at $30,000.
Thus half a million has been given by women to these six
colleges and professional schools, and all in the present
century. The reports of similar institutions for men all over
the nation would show similar liberal benefactions of women to
endow institutions for the other sex, while for their own no
such records appear. Where is there a single endowment from a
woman to secure a salary to a woman teaching her own proper
profession?
It is the depressed and suffering condition of our sex, here indicated,
which is the exciting cause of the agitation to gain woman suffrage.
To me, success in this effort appears not as a remedy, but rather as a
curse. But there are favorable results involved in this agitation that
deserve consideration. One is, the exhibition of the moral power now
held by women in our nation. For if women urging measures so contrary
to our customs and prejudices—not to say so contrary to common sense
and the Bible—with many prominent leaders so destitute of discretion
and political foresight, yet can move society so powerfully, what
could not be accomplished by the organized influence and action of that
vast majority of intelligent women opposed to such innovations?
Another beneficial result it is hoped will be, systematic and concerted
measures by judicious and benevolent women to organize agencies to
remedy the evils all must lament, and by measures more wise and more
practicable. What such measure will probably be, may be indicated by
a series of resolutions adopted first by two previous meetings, and
afterwards by a large public meeting at Steinway Hall, New York, of
ladies invited by the Managers of the American Woman's Educational
Association, from all religious denominations in the city, as follows:
"Resolved, That one cause of the depressed condition of woman
is the fact that the distinctive profession of her sex, as the
nurse of infancy and of the sick, as educator of childhood, and
as the chief minister of the family state, has not been duly
honored, nor such provision been made for its scientific and
practical training as is accorded to the other sex for their
professions; and, that it is owing to this neglect that women
are driven to seek honor and independence in the institutions
and the professions of men.
"Resolved, That woman's distinctive profession, in its various
branches, involves more important interests than any other
human science; and, that the evils suffered by women would be
extensively remedied by establishing institutions for training
women for her profession, which shall be as generously endowed
as are the institutions of men, many of which have been largely
endowed by women.
"Resolved, That the science of domestic economy should be
made a study in all institutions for girls; and that certain
practical employments of the family state should be made a part
of common school education, especially the art of sewing, which
is so needful for the poor.
"Resolved, That every young woman should be trained to some
business by which she can earn an independent livelihood in
case of poverty.
"Resolved, That in addition to the various in-door employments
suitable for woman, there are other out-door employments
especially favorable to health and equally suitable, such as
raising fruits and flowers, the culture of silk and cotton,
the raising of bees, and the superintendence of dairy farms
and manufactures. All of these offer avenues to wealth and
independence for women as properly as men, and schools
for imparting to women the science and practice of these
employments should be provided, and as liberally endowed as
are the agricultural schools for men." These resolutions were
adopted unanimously and then published in all the leading
secular and religious papers with equally unanimous approval.
The following from the _N. Y. Evening Post_, is a fair specimen
of the whole.
"These resolutions contain sound sense; and their claim that
practical schools for women deserve as much attention as
similar schools for men, is undeniably just. If we are to have
industrial schools at all, if it is important that anybody
should be able to secure systematic and thorough instruction
as a preparation for useful industries, girls would be as much
benefited by such instruction as boys; and women need it as
much as men.
"There is no doubt that the present arrangement of society
bears more hardly upon women than upon men; and all wise
efforts to make them more independent of the mischances of life
deserve encouragement."
Although the plan aimed at is large, this Association commenced with
only a small portion. At Milwaukee, where is their first institution,
a school already organized was taken as the nucleus. The citizens were
to furnish land, and building, and pupils enough to support by tuition
fees a given number of teachers. On these conditions the Association
agreed to provide endowments to support a certain number of teachers,
so long as the plan of the Association was carried out, but if it was
relinquished, to remove their patronage to another place. The Lady
Agent of the Association is still at the head of this Institution,
which has prospered on this plan for more than fifteen years, the
Association supporting by their funds a portion of the teachers.
In my former address in this place, I showed how in this and other
cities, the more wealthy, and best educated classes, and those who pay
the most taxes for public education, provide for their own daughters
inferior advantages to those given to the humblest poor. Our own
High School in this city compared with this Seminary and all private
schools, will illustrate this remarkable fact.
For our High School has a building healthfully and thoroughly warmed
and ventilated, as can be said of neither this Seminary, nor any
private school of this city; while its apparatus and library are
superior to any except those of the College, and the Theological
School, to which no girls have access. By reason of subordinate graded
schools, only well prepared pupils are admitted, or this is the rule
which can be enforced; while all scholars must enter at regular
periods. Thus, only four classes are formed and only a small number
of studies are pursued at any one time. The teachers are thus allowed
time to prepare themselves, and other great advantages for instructing,
while their salaries are much higher than can be given to assistant
teachers in most private schools. Thus the best class of teachers are
tempted to forsake private schools for these superior advantages.
In contrast to these advantages, although this Seminary is warmed and
ventilated as well as most private schools, it is necessary to employ
much of the time of an intelligent and careful teacher to keep the
rooms at proper temperature, well ventilated and free from poisonous
gases, and yet with but imperfect success.
Then the pupils enter this and all private schools, at any time and at
all grades of advancement, making it necessary to multiply classes and
to tax the teachers in order to bring forward the new comers to certain
classes. The method of arranging certain studies at one time of the
year, and others only at other times, as in colleges and our public
high schools, often cannot be enforced without dissatisfying patrons,
and thus lessening income. Then the accomplishments, especially Piano
music, to which classes must conform, greatly increases the difficulty
of classification in this and in all private schools.
The result usually is, a most inferior, desultory, and unsatisfactory
course of education. There are cases where by overworking poorly paid
assistant teachers, and by small profits to proprietors, some private
schools turn out as fine scholars as our best managed High schools. But
these are exceptions, and exceptions that bear very severely on the
subordinate women teachers.
Thus comes to pass the remarkable fact that the most wealthy and
cultivated pay the largest taxes to furnish the poorer classes a
gratuitous and a better education than they gain for their own
daughters by paying the largest tuition fees, or at expensive boarding
schools.
There is great misconception as to the advantages of education
for daughters of the more wealthy classes, owing to the fact that
the ambitious name of "college" is given to schools that have no
proper claim to this appellation. For the distinctive feature of a
college heretofore has been its _endowments_, by which a permanent
faculty of superior and co-equal teachers are maintained to a great
extent independent of tuition fees; and also supporting professors
as independent heads of departments, instead of subordinates to a
principal, as in High Schools and academies. This being the fact, there
is not a single college for women in this country, nor in the whole
world.
The only feature of a college in any institutions for women is a
similar course of study and graduating diplomas, and these without
endowments only increase the branches taught, and decrease the
thoroughness of instruction and overwork the teachers.
There is also great misconception as to the influence of woman's
domestic duties in developing and training the intellect. A problem
in arithmetic or geometry is far more interesting, and therefore more
quickening to the intellect, when it is directly applied to some
useful, practical purpose. Thus a woman who is daily calculating her
butcher's and grocer's accounts, or trading at stores, is cultivating
her intellect as much or more than she would by studying arithmetic
in college or school without any end but to escape reproof or marks
of imperfection. So the planning and cutting garments and the various
other calculations and measurements of carpets, curtains, and
furniture, are daily exercises in both geometry and arithmetic, while
the practical interest and the handicraft involved tend to quicken
intellectual vigor.
Then in kitchen affairs, domestic chemistry, though on a small scale,
is constantly studied and practically applied. Again in the care
of infants and of the sick, the discipline of the physiologist and
the physician are united. Then in the government of servants and
children, the same mental exertion and principles are employed as are
demanded for legislatures, statesmen, and magistrates. Then in the
religious training of children, all the most profound questions of
the metaphysician and the theologian are daily objects of enquiry and
reflection as childhood urges the most difficult problems of mental
science, and of natural and revealed religion.
A man in his daily toils, or in the learned professions has only
one or two subjects that hold his practical attention and interest,
but a woman as mother and housekeeper has a constant succession of
employments that tax all her intellectual and her moral powers. These
views are remarkably illustrated by some of the women of a former
generation whose intellectual training was chiefly in domestic pursuits
with little else except the humblest kind of common school, a very
small library, and a vigorous pulpit ministry. Let such be compared
with multitudes of women who with little domestic training and exercise
have graduated from the High Schools and Colleges of the present day,
and we shall have occasion for serious reflection as to the diverse
results.
I can best illustrate this by an individual case that may fairly
represent a large class of women forty or fifty years ago. In early
youth I lived in Litchfield, Conn., where a law school was conducted
by Judge Reeves, and Judge Gould, two of the most talented and learned
jurists of the nation, and gathered from forty to over one hundred law
students from the first colleges and the first families of every state
in the Union. There were also eight or ten other gentlemen of liberal
education and some of more than ordinary talents and culture, in the
same circle.
Then of the ladies I met in that circle, were Mrs. Judge Reeve, Mrs.
Judge Gould, Miss Sarah Pierce, to whom I owe my school education, Miss
Mary Pierce, Miss Amelia Ogden, Miss Lucy Sheldon, my father's sister
Esther, my mother's sister Mrs. Mary Hubbard, and my mother. In my own
family circle I used to hear my mother and aunts discussing a variety
of literary and scientific topics, and especially remember their
enthusiastic interest in the new discoveries of chemistry by Lavoisier,
and their practical test experiments in the kitchen and study. Aunt
Esther was deeply interested in medical science, and probably had read
medical works as extensively as most physicians of that day.
Then Mrs. Judge Reeve, and my mother and aunts, would meet and read
works of history, or travels, or some classic English literature.
Miss Mary Pierce was an accomplished elocutionist, and when Judge
Gould suffered from weak eyes, would go day after day to read works
of literature and discuss the topics introduced. Miss Sarah Pierce
was head of the largest and most celebrated female school of the
nation, and was overflowing with acquired knowledge, as well as poetic
treasures.
Now not one of these ladies had studied a line of Latin or Greek, or
of mathematics or other college studies which women are now seeking
so earnestly at the sacrifice of health and all domestic culture.
And yet when they met these gentlemen of the highest talents and
education, they were regarded as fully their equals in mental power
and intellectual debate. Indeed, some of my brothers educated in this
circle, honestly maintained that women were endowed by nature with
intellectual powers superior to men; and one brother argued in defence
of this position in a public college exercise. Moreover, six brothers
had a college education, while none of my sisters studied any part of
the college course; and yet there has been no marked inequality of
mental power and culture in this diverse training.
In that day, novels, by most women, were either deemed an unlawful
indulgence, or were taken as condiments only, while the substantials
of literature and science were their chief intellectual pabulum. And
having but few books and those the choice works of the best English
classics, they were perused and reperused with such interest as rarely
is given in colleges to the literature of Greece and Rome. And it was
a frequent fact, that women were far better read in English classic
literature than were their brothers and friends in colleges.
Now at the present day, when mothers and housekeepers meet gentlemen
in social gatherings, is there anything in their conversation and
pursuits to show the superior advantages of the female High Schools
and Colleges, which have nearly supplanted the intellectual domestic
training of a former generation? Have not novels, magazine stories,
newspaper literature, and the fashions and accomplishments of the age
taken the place of the more vigorous mental culture so common at a
former period?
A variety of intellectual training which is pursued in connection with
such interesting practical results as woman's employments involve,
tends to produce a vigorous and well balanced mind, far more than
devotion to one or two professional pursuits such as the business
of most men requires. And even in science and literature, we not
unfrequently find some of the most learned men entirely deficient in
intellectual balance and executive power; while their less learned
mothers or wives are respected as wise and practical counselors.