"Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with the choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy music; as I come,
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before."
MACDONALD.
To propose an essay on education requires no little courage; for the
term has covered, with its broad mantle, every thing that is stupid,
perverse, and oppressive in literature. We will not tax ourselves,
however, to consider exact theories, or suggest formal dissertations. In
these lectures, let us take all the liberties of conversation; pass, in
brief review, a wide range of subjects; comment lightly, not thoroughly,
upon them; and trust to quick sympathies and intelligent apprehension to
follow out any really useful suggestions that may be made.
Some time since, we laid down this proposition: "A man's right to
education--that is, to the education or drawing-out of all the faculties
God has given him--involves the right to a choice of vocation; that is,
to a choice of the end to which those faculties shall be trained. The
choice of vocation involves the right and the duty of protecting that
vocation; that is, the right of deciding how far it shall be taxed, in
how many ways legislative action shall be allowed to control it; in one
word, the right to the elective franchise."
This statement we made in the broadest way; applying it to the present
condition of women, and intending to show, that, the moment society
conceded the right to education, it conceded the whole question, unless
this logic could be disputed.
Men of high standing have been found to question a position seemingly so
impregnable, but only on the ground that republicanism is itself a
failure, and that it is quite time that Massachusetts should insist upon
a property qualification for voters.
In this State, so remarkable for its intelligence and mechanical
skill,--a State which has sent regiment after regiment to the
battle-field, armed by the college, rather than the court,--in this
State, one somewhat eminent voice has been heard to whisper, that _men_
have not this right to education; that the lower classes in this country
are fatally injured by the advantages offered them; that they would be
happier, more contented, and more useful, if left to take their chance,
or compelled to pay for the reading and writing which their employers,
in some kinds, might require.
We need not be sorry that these objections are so stated. They are a
fair sample of all the objections that obtain against the legal
emancipation of _woman_, an emancipation which Christ himself intended
and prophesied,--speaking always of his kingdom as one in which no
distinctions of sex should either be needed or recognized. Push any
objector to the wall, and he will be compelled to shift his attitude. He
says nothing more about women, but shields himself under the old
autocratic pretension, that man, collectively taken, has _no_ right to
life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness; that republicanism itself is
a failure.
Our hearts need not sink in view of this assertion, apparently sustained
by a civil war that fixes the suspicious eyes of autocratic Europe in
sullen suspense. A republic, whose foundations were laid in usurpation,
could not expect to stand, till it had, with its own right arm, struck
off its "feet of clay." It is not freedom which fails, but slavery.
The course of the world is not retrograde. Massachusetts will not call a
convention to insist upon a property qualification for voters, neither
will she close her schoolhouses, nor forswear her ancient faith. The
time shall yet come when she shall free herself from reproach, and
fulfil the prophetic promise of her republicanism, by generous endowment
for her women, and the open recognition of their citizenship.
It is not our purpose, however, to dwell upon facilities of school
education. More conservative speakers will plead, eloquently as we could
wish, in that behalf; and suggestions on other topics need to be made.
We have already said, that the educational rights of women are simply
those of all human beings,--namely, "the right to be taught all common
branches of learning, a sufficient use of the needle, and any higher
branches, for which they shall evince either taste or inclination; the
right to have colleges, schools of law, theology, and medicine open to
them; the right of access to all scientific and literary collections, to
anatomical preparations, historical records, and rare manuscripts."
And we do not make this claim with any particular theory as to woman's
powers or possibilities. She may be equal to man, or inferior to him.
She may fail in rhetoric, and succeed in mathematics. She may be able to
bear fewer hours of study. She may insist on more protracted labor. What
we claim is, that no one knows, as yet, what women are, or what they can
do,--least of all, those who have been wedded for years to that low
standard of womanly achievement, which classical study tends to sustain.
Because we do not know, because experiment is necessary, we claim that
all educational institutions should be kept open for her; that she
should be encouraged to avail herself of these, according to her own
inclination; and that, so far as possible, she should pursue her
studies, and test her powers, in company with man. We do not wish her to
follow _any_ dictation; not ours, nor another's. We ask for her a
freedom she has never yet had. There is, between the sexes, a law of
incessant, reciprocal action, of which God avails himself in the
constitution of the family, when he permits brothers and sisters to
nestle about one hearth-stone. Its ministration is essential to the best
educational results. Our own educational institutions should rest upon
this divine basis. In educating the sexes together under fatherly and
motherly supervision,[1] we avail ourselves of the highest example; and
the result will be a simplicity, modesty, and purity of character, not
so easy to attain when general abstinence from each other's society
makes the occasions of re-union a period of harmful excitement. Out of
it would come a quick perception of mutual proprieties, delicate
attention to manly and womanly habits, refinement of feeling, grace of
manner, and a thoroughly symmetrical development. If the objections
which are urged against this--the divine fashion of training men and
women to the duties of life--were well founded, they would have been
felt long ago in those district schools, attended by both sexes, which
are the pride of New England. The classes recently opened by the Lowell
Institute, under the control of the Institute of Technology, are an
effort in the right direction, for which we cannot be too grateful.
Heretofore, every attempt to give advanced instruction to women has
failed. Did a woman select the most accomplished instructor of men, and
pay him the highest fee, she could not secure thorough tuition. He
taught her without conscience in the higher branches; for he took it
upon himself to assume that she would never put them to practical use.
He treated her desire for such instruction as a caprice, though she
might have shown her appreciation by the distinct bias of her life. We
claim for women a share of the opportunities offered to men, because we
believe that they will never be thoroughly taught until they are taught
at the same time and in the same classes.
The most mischievous errors are perpetuated by drawing masculine and
feminine lines in theory at the outset. The God-given impulse of sex, if
left in complete freedom, will establish, in time, certain distinctions
for itself; but these distinctions should never be pressed on any
individual soul. Whether man or woman, each should be left free to
choose its own methods of development. We pause, therefore, to show,
that, when we spoke of a certain use of the needle as a matter to be
taught to both sexes, we did so by no inadvertence. The use of the
sewing machine is even now common to both; but men, as well as women,
should be taught to use their fingers for common purposes skilfully.
Personal contact with the pauperism of large cities has sent this
conviction home to many practical minds.
The rough tippets, mittens, and socks imported into the British
Colonies, are the work of the Welsh farmers and the Shetland fishermen
during the long tempestuous winter nights. In writing to Lady Holland,
Sidney Smith pens some pleasant words on this subject.
"I wish I could sew," he says. "I believe one reason why women are so
much more cheerful than men is because they can work, and so vary their
employments. Lady ---- used to teach her boys carpet-work. All men ought
to learn to sew."
All men! and so might the cares of many women be lightened. Let us
candidly confess our own indebtedness to the needle. How many hours of
sorrow has it softened, how many bitter irritations calmed, how many
confused thoughts reduced to order, how many life-plans sketched in
purple!
Let us pass over that portion of our statement which hints at vocation,
and confine ourselves, for the present, to that part of it which looks
to an unrestricted mental culture. Nowhere is this systematically denied
to women. It is quite common to hear people say, "There is no need to
press that subject. Education in New England is free to women. In
Bangor, Portsmouth, Newburyport, and Boston, they are better Latin
scholars than the men. Nothing can set this stream back: turn and labor
elsewhere."
We have shown to how very small an extent this statement is true. If it
were true of the mere means of education, education itself is not won
for woman, till it brings to her precisely the same blessings that it
bears to the feet of man; till it gives her honor, respect, and bread;
till position becomes the rightful inheritance of capacity, and social
influence follows a knowledge of mathematics and the languages. Our
deficiency in the last stages of the culture offered to our women made a
strong impression on a late Russian traveller.
"Is that the best you can do?" said Mr. Kapnist, when he came out of the
Mason-street Normal School for Girls. "It is very poor. In Russia, we
should do better. At Cambridge, you have eminent men in every
kind,--Agassiz, Gray, Peirce. Why do they not lecture to these women? In
Russia, they would go everywhere,--speak to both sexes. At a certain
age, recitation is the very poorest way of imparting knowledge."
To all adult minds, lectures convey instruction more happily than
recitation; and, when men and women are taught together, the lecture
system is valuable, because it permits the mind to appropriate its own
nutriment, and does not oppress the faculties with uncongenial food.
To those who are familiar with the whole question, no theme is more
painful than that of the inadequate compensation and depressed position
of the female teacher. There is no need to harp on this discordant
string. Let us strike its key-note in a single story.
A year ago, in one of the most beautiful towns of this neighborhood,
separated by a grassy common, shaded with drooping elms, rose two ample
buildings, dedicated to the same purpose. They were the High Schools for
the two sexes.
They were taught by two persons, admirably fitted for their work. The
man, uncommonly happy in imparting instruction, was yet deficient in
mathematics, and considered by competent judges inferior to the woman.
_She_ was an orphan, with a young sister dependent upon her for
instruction and support. She had been graduated with the highest honors
at one of the State Normal Schools. She was delicate and beautiful; not
in the least "strong-minded." Neither spectacles upon her nose, nor
wooden soles to her boots, appealed to the popular indignation. All who
knew her loved her; and the man whom we have named was not ashamed to
receive instruction from her in geometry and algebra. The two schools
were equal in numbers. The man was a bachelor, subject to no claim
beyond his own necessity. What did common sense and right reason demand,
but that these two persons should be treated alike by society,
prudential committees, and so on? You shall hear what was the fact. The
man was engaged at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars. The wealthiest
class in the community intrusted its sons to his charge without
question. Single, he was made much of in society, invited to parties,
and had his own corner at many a tea-table, which he brightened with his
pleasant jokes. He soon came to be a person in the town,--had his vote,
was valued accordingly; went to church, was put upon committees, had a
great deal to do with calling the new minister, and so, out of school,
had pleasant and varied occupation, which saved his soul from racking to
death over the ruts of the Latin grammar. Would we have it otherwise?
Was it not all right? Certainly it was, and our friend deserved it;
deserved, too, that when the second year was half over, and there were
rumors that a distant city had secured his services, the committee
should raise his salary two hundred and fifty dollars, and so keep him
for themselves. But let us look at the reverse of the picture. The
woman, burdened with the care of a younger sister, greatly this man's
superior in mathematics and possibly in other things, was engaged at six
hundred dollars. It was not customary for the wealthy families in that
neighborhood to trust their girls to the tender mercies of a public
school; so she had a class of pupils less elegant in manner, of more
ordinary mental training, and every way more difficult to control. Still
they were disciplined, and learned to love their teacher. A few of the
parents called upon her, and she was occasionally invited to their
homes. But these homes were not congenial to her tastes or habits. There
was no intellectual stimulus derived from them to brighten her life.
They offered neither pictures, statues, books, nor the results of
travel, to her delicate and yearning appreciation. She talked, for the
most part, of her pupils and their work; and the strain of her vocation,
always heavier on woman than on man, wore more and more upon her soul.
Society, as such, offered her no welcome.[2]
_She_ was nothing to the town. She hired her seat, and went to church.
She had no vote, was never on a parish committee, had only one chance to
change her position. That was to remove to a more congenial
neighborhood, at a lower salary; but she thought of her young sister,
and refused. If the committee heard of it, they did not offer to
increase her salary. They were men incapable of appreciating her rare
and modest culture. There was a tendency to consumption in her frame.
Had she been happy, she might have resisted it for years, perhaps for
ever; but with the restless pining at her heart, that mental and moral
marasmus, the physical disease soon showed itself. In the commencement
of the third year of her teaching, she began to cough; and, in less than
three months from the day when she heard her last class, she lay in an
early but not unhonored grave. The deep affection of her classmates in
the Normal School had always followed her; and one who chanced to hear
of her illness brightened its rapid decline. This woman, herself
prematurely old, in consequence of twelve years of labor on the Red
River of Louisiana, the only place open to her, where her abilities were
appreciated to the extent of twelve hundred dollars a year, and would
enable her to support a widowed mother,--this woman, with her now-scanty
purse, supplied the invalid with fresh flowers and sweet pictures; and,
when her heavy eye grew weary of gazing, gently closed it in the sleep
of death, scattered rare and fragrant blossoms over her unconscious
form, and followed it to the grave. Those flowers! brought daily to her
teacher's-desk by a friendly or loving hand, they might have fed a
craving heart, and saved a precious life.
It is no new story. You have heard it many times. Do not reply in the
stale maxims of political economy. Do not say that woman's labor is
cheaper than man's, because it is more abundant. Unskilled labor, we
will grant you, is more abundant; but such labor as is here offered must
always be rare and valuable. To the applicants who came to fill her
vacant place the committee said, "We do not expect to find another
capable as she was. We have only to select one that _will do_." Yet they
had not been ashamed to use that capacity without paying for it! Only
ignorance and prejudice and custom stood in the way of its appreciation;
only the want of that respect which a citizen can always command was at
the bottom of her social isolation. She never complained; but we
complain for her, sadly conscious, that, until men themselves perceive
what is fit, the remonstrances of women will be fruitless. One such word
as that spoken by the Hon. Joseph White at Framingham, in July, 1864, is
worth more than all that women can say. Nevertheless, we women have our
duty. It is to convince and stimulate men. Be on the watch, then, for
such women; and claim for them their place and remuneration. Help
society to understand its duty, to be frank and honorable. And if
certain services are worth, as in this case, seventeen hundred and fifty
dollars a year, pay for equal services, _by whomsoever rendered_, an
equal sum.
Since I first began to speak upon this subject, a very great change has
taken place: women are put in places which require higher culture and
greater administrative capacity. They are also paid better wages: these
wages are not yet in fair proportion to what are paid to men for the
same work; and the shameful argument is still used, that we employ
women, chiefly because men will not work for the same price. The Roxbury
High School, the Shurtleff Grammar School in Chelsea, the Normal School
at St. Louis, and the Normal School at Framingham, are now under the
charge of women. In the list of teachers from the Oswego School, we find
four who are paid one thousand dollars a year, and eleven who are paid
seven hundred dollars. Our daily press is very well satisfied with this;
but, since 1860, what portion of a decent living will seven hundred
dollars provide to a cultivated woman? When the salaries of the St.
Louis teachers were raised in 1866, the principal was obliged to express
her indignation before her salary was raised to its present sum of two
thousand dollars. Had she been a man, she would certainly have had as
much as the principal of the High School; namely, twenty-seven hundred
and fifty dollars. A graduate of Antioch College, assisting in the High
School at St. Louis, has twelve hundred dollars, where a man would have
seventeen hundred dollars. Miss Brackett's own assistants in the Normal
School have eleven hundred dollars.
The appointment of Miss Johnson to the head of the Normal School at
Framingham will open the way to a similar change in many quarters, if
what Governor Bullock has not disdained to call the "policy of
Massachusetts" is consistently carried out. I do not know what salary is
offered to Miss Johnson; but, if it were equal to that of the man who
preceded her, would not the newspapers have told us? The comparative
value of these salaries is not shown by the figures. It depends on the
prices of gold, and of food and provisions, each year. It cannot be half
as great as an inexperienced person would think.
There is a great want of female teachers of Latin and French. School
committees assure me, that proficients in language would be certain of
good pay in our high schools. For the most part, women prefer to devote
themselves to mathematics. I used to say, with a smile, in the Western
States, that all the women could read the "Mécanique Céleste;" but they
found Cæsar and Télémaque equally uninteresting. Later, Colonel
Higginson bears witness to the impossibility of getting good classical
teachers.
It is a common idea, that the standard of education is higher now than
it was thirty years ago. It may be doubted. More things are taught in
schools,--ologies, isms, and the like; but the most thorough teachers
are not the most popular, and it may be questioned, whether in the best
minds on the Continent, in England, or this country, so great progress
has been made as has been generally claimed. There is much more
liberality in regard to the general question, but no more in regard to
the ideal standard.
In one of Niebuhr's letters to Madame Hensler, he says, in speaking of
Klopstock: "The character of the women is a remarkable feature of the
time of Klopstock's youth. The cultivation of the mind was carried
incomparably farther with them than with nearly all the young women of
our days; and this we should scarcely have expected to find in the
cotemporaries of our grandmothers. It was not, therefore, the influence
of our native literature; for that first rose into being along with, and
under the influence of, the love inspired by these charming maidens. For
some time after the Thirty Years' War, the ladies of Germany,
particularly those of the middle classes, were excessively coarse and
uneducated. This wonderful alteration must have taken place, therefore,
during eighty years,--between 1660 and 1740; though we are quite
ignorant how and when it began."
Passing over to France, we encounter the reputation of Madame de Sablé;
a woman, let me remark, for the benefit of those who are afraid that the
march of education will deprive them of their dinners, as celebrated for
her exquisite cooking and delicate confections as she was for her
literary ability. In speaking of her, Cousin says: "All the literature
of maxims and thoughts, including those of La Rochefoucauld, grew up in
the _salon_ of a lovely woman withdrawn into a convent. Having no
earthly pleasure but that of reliving her life, she knew how to impart
her own taste to society, in which she met by chance an accomplished
wit, whom she contrived to turn into a great writer." He is speaking of
the early part of the seventeenth century; and, in spite of the
notorious dissipation of the period, many gifted and many virtuous women
crowded her _salon_,--the Princess Palatine, the Princesses of Condé, de
Conti, de Longueville, and Schomberg, Anna de Rohan, and Mademoiselle
herself. There the gentlemen carried the pages they wrote at home, and
not only bore with, but accepted, the criticisms of the women. They had
no compensation but their praises, unless, like La Rochefoucauld, they
were cunning enough to demand a carrot pottage or some preserved plums
in exchange for a page of literature. In England, it is not necessary to
avail ourselves of an exceptional education, like that of Lady Jane
Grey. Remembering the noble culture of Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart,
of the sturdy women of the Commonwealth, we might surely expect a
greater progress in the national idea. But, if its average could be
found, neither the wife of John Hampden nor Lady Russell would accept
it. It would seem that our standard advances, if at all, by a series of
Hugh Miller's parabolic curves. What we find, depends upon the point at
which we happen to test the eccentric arc; and, when we enter the
nineteenth century, we are forced to take refuge in analogy, and ask,
"If the ancient Egyptians _ever_ mastered the Copernican idea, why
should Galileo be imprisoned to-day for insisting that the sun does not
move round the earth?" The stimulating examples of noble and educated
women, which now present themselves, do not cheer us as they should,
while they remain exceptions. In making what Dickens would call an
"indiscriminate and incontinent" excursion, into the regions of female
thought and literature, we find its atmosphere in a somewhat
unventilated condition, and are reminded of an opinion of the Druses
which does not seem to have been wholly impertinent, that "literature is
a mean and contemptible occupation, _fit only for women_." Twenty years
ago, when ties of an almost filial tenderness linked us to the household
of the late Judge Cranch, we have often followed him, unrecognized, of a
Saturday afternoon, when, returning from the bench, he climbed Capitol
Hill, one hand grasping the handle of some colored washerwoman's basket,
or slinging her heavy bundle over his shoulder on a stick. The dear
remembrance, sustained by all the sweet and delicate courtesies of his
private life, has always lain side by side in our mind with that
exquisite Essay of Elia to which he first directed our attention, in
which a noble reverence to woman is inculcated, and we are taught to
judge every man's respect for the sex by his demeanor towards its
humblest representative. Yet, if Judge Cranch never swerved from his
gracious dignity, Charles Lamb did. Woman had not gained, in his
lifetime, such a hold upon her intellectual rights, that a dinner
company dared chide him, when he said of Letitia Landon, "If she
belonged to me, I would lock her up, and feed her on bread and water,
till she gave up writing poetry. A female poet, or female author of any
kind, ranks below an actress, _I_ think."
We do not quote these words so much against Lamb himself,--for the lips
of Mary Lamb's brother must have been thick with wine, when, with
"stammering, insufficient sound," he included her in so sweeping a
reprobation,--but to indicate the nature of that public opinion which is
even now dwarfing the ideals of the best men; to show how little
reliance is to be placed on the standard of the most generous, when a
remark like this, uttered in a large literary circle, passes without
criticism, and is recorded without conscious mortification,--recorded,
too, by the father of that Coventry Patmore, who has known how to offer
us, in later times, sugar-plums of his own _coloring_--let us add of his
own _poisoning_ also--under the alluring names of "betrothals" and
"espousals." How far the _facts_ are from the ideal standard, Mrs.
Jameson, in a lecture lately delivered, will help us to show.
"With all our schools," she says, "of all denominations, it remains an
astounding fact, that _one-half_ of the women who annually become
_wives_, in this England of ours, cannot sign their names in the parish
register; and that this amount of ignorance in the lower classes is
accompanied with an amount of ill-health, despondency, inaptitude, and
uselessness in the so-called educated classes, which, taken together,
prove that our boasted appliances are to a great extent failures."
The ancient standard of Italy was very high, even in the fifteenth
century, if we consider only the literary skill or mathematical culture
frequently desired and attained; but Anna Maria Mozzoni may congratulate
herself on having given a moral and social impetus to it, which it has
never before received. Her wise, considerate, philosophical suggestions
will meet the cordial welcome of all right-minded women. If followed
out, they will create nobler women than Tambroni or Laura Veratti.[3]
There was no institution in England for the proper training of sick
nurses, when Florence Nightingale went to Kaiserworth, a small town near
Düsseldorf, on the Rhine, to prepare herself to take charge of the
Female Sanitorium. In Great Britain, at this moment, the excess of the
female population over the male amounts to five hundred thousand souls;
and from all directions we hear the cry, that _men_ need educated
assistants. What is the country doing to answer this cry, to educate her
five hundred thousand women? In 1825 Dr. Gooch made a noble appeal to
the English public, in behalf of educating women to be nurses; but there
was no response. When the first school of design was started, a petition
was drawn up and _signed_, praying that women might not be taught, at
the expense of the Government, arts which would interfere with the
employment of men, and "take the bread out of _their_ mouths"!
Here was an absurd interference with the right of _feeding_, on the
part of these petitioners! As if women did not want bread as well as
men; and being, according to authority, the less intelligent and weaker
sex, one would suppose that to help them to find it might be a part of
that protection to which the Government stands pledged, and for which
their property is taxed.
"But," says Mrs. Jameson, "if a petition were drawn up, and handed to
medical men, praying that women should not be trained as nurses, nor
taught the laws of health, I am afraid there are well-intentioned men,
who would, at the time, be induced to sign it; but I believe that
twenty, nay, even ten years hence, they would look back upon their
signatures with as much disgust and amazement as is now excited by the
attempt to explode and sneer down the school at Marlborough House."
Another noble English woman, Mrs. Barbara Leigh Bodichon, in a recent
pamphlet called "Woman and Work," gives us the correspondence between
Jessie Meriton White and the various medical schools to which she
applied for admission. This lady had for several years had charge of two
little lame children, one of them her own nephew. The latter, on account
of some structural defect, had broken his leg sixteen times. Once, when
suitable attendance was not to be had, his aunt set and splintered it
herself. The physician who examined it advised her to apply for
instruction. She applied to fourteen medical institutions in the city
of London, asking sometimes for _private_ anatomical instruction. The
correspondence with four colleges in the year 1856 is given,--from the
St. George's, the Royal College of Surgeons, St. Bartholomew's Hospital,
and the University of London. It amply bears out her assertion, that she
was nowhere met with solid objections, or with sensible and logical
replies. Sometimes she was told of the _indelicacy_ of her request! The
University of London, which was legally bound by its charter to receive
her, treated her as coolly as the rest; and in no case was any
individual regret expressed for the official decision.
Indelicacy, forsooth! Where can we find it, if not in the impure nature
which raises the objection, and the low manner of thinking in general
society which consents to receive it? May not the mother, who receives
her naked new-born child from the hand of God, fitly ask to understand
the liabilities of its little frame? May not the wife, called in seasons
of sickness to the most delicate and trying duties, modestly ask for
that thorough culture which alone can make those duties easy? And who
make this objection? Men who go shuddering and half-drunken into the
dissecting room, to scatter vile jests above that prostrate temple of
the Holy Ghost! Men who see nothing in the exquisite development of
God's creation, but the reflection of their own obscene lives! Students
who know no better way to steel their courage to the use of the scalpel
than to play at foot-ball on the college green with a human skull,
holding its dignity to the level of their own honor![4]
The best hope that Jessie Meriton White has for England is, that some of
the most distinguished professors shall consent in time to take classes
of female students.
The office of the physician is as holy as that of the priest: formerly
they were one; now, at least, the physician should be priest-like.
Irreverence and impurity should be banished from medical ranks. The
science of medicine stands in great need of the intuitive genius of
woman. In pursuing it, she will need the steady caution of man. In this
country and in France, earnest and devoted students of both sexes have
stood in the dissecting room to the benefit of both. So let them
continue to stand, till the spirit is known by its fruits. An impure man
is no better than an impure woman; but impurity among men may be
concealed. Let it come between the two sexes, and it will be brought at
once into antagonism with society, and will meet its true desert. The
objection reveals the secrets of the medical college, and is the
strongest argument ever offered for the medical education of women.
If women are to practise as physicians, some means should be taken to
protect society against those who are imperfectly educated. _What a
degree means_ will always be doubtful, until men and women receive
their degrees in the same way and from the same hands. America stands
greatly in need of this protection. Crowds of unauthorized,
half-educated women, some of whom have not been ashamed to cross the
Atlantic, and have attracted such sympathy abroad as only a different
class of students deserve, are thronging the valley of the Mississippi,
as well as haunting with their empirical pretensions the purlieus of the
seaboard cities. If men had received properly trained women into their
colleges and medical societies, this would not have happened. Cannot
such physicians as Dr. Zakrzewska, Dr. Blackwell, Dr. Sewall, Dr. Tyng,
and Dr. Ross of Milwaukie, unite to organize a Woman's Medical Society,
with an examining board whose diploma shall attest the character of the
member? Dr. Storer's admirable pamphlet entitled "Why not?" points out
an evil, which will never be remedied by thrusting empirical women into
the positions now held by unscrupulous men.[5]
And what have we to say of our own country? Has the American standard
reached a safe altitude, or must we admit that it has the same
limitations? A popular width of view we have certainly gained in the
last half-century; but have we made secure progress in the right
direction? Some eighty years ago, John Adams wrote of his wife, "This
lady was more beautiful than Lady Russell, had a brighter genius, more
information, and more refined taste, and was at least her equal in
virtues of the heart, in fortitude and firmness of character, in
resignation to the will of Heaven, and in all the virtues and graces of
the Christian life. Like Lady Russell, she never discouraged her husband
from running all hazards for the salvation of his country's liberties;
she was willing to share with me, and that her children should share
with us both, in all the dangerous consequences we had to hazard."
Will America ever offer to the world a nobler picture? Is it at this
moment above or below our average ideal? "With such a mother," said John
Quincy Adams, in Boston, less than twenty years ago, "with such a
mother, it has been the perpetual instruction of my life to love and
reverence the female sex; but I have been taught also--and the lesson is
still more deeply impressed--I have been taught _not_ to flatter them."
Noble words! Gentlemen to whom it falls to deliver annually
Normal-school addresses would do well to take a lesson from them. They
would wince a little, could they hear the criticisms of the indignant
girls upon their actual advice and praise. How would these men have
liked it, if at fifteen they had been addressed as fathers of an unborn
generation, whose especial duty it was to adapt themselves to this
sphere? And why should men complain, that women look to marriage, and
marriage only, as salvation, if the whole tenor of their own influence
is used to emphasize it as woman's "manifest destiny"? "Are there not
_two_ married, and where is the one?" What propriety is there in
assuming, in advance, that the sphere which married life opens has a
stronger hold on one sex than the other?
We have said enough to show, that in Germany, France, England, and
America, the ideal standard of education was sufficiently high over a
century ago. Why has not such actual progress been made as might have
been expected?
Because _public opinion_ has constantly thwarted the ideal growth.
Educated women have, for the most part, wanted courage to do what is
right, unless sustained by men. In education, for the duties of which
they are acknowledged to be superior, they have never insisted on the
changes they knew to be necessary, but have uniformly succumbed to the
masculine idea. Shall we blame them? Is a conflict in the heart of a
family a pleasant thing? Certainly, the hand which the magnanimous
sympathy of men has set free cannot cast the first stone. The slowness
and faithlessness of men too often paralyzes the best efforts of women.
The faith which Isabella showed Columbus, would be, at this moment, a
grateful return from them. Charles Lamb has shown us how valueless to
the working woman the support of delicate sentiment may be. The ringing
of the glasses round a table dulled his exquisite ear to the fine
spheral harmonies it had once caught. He broke, in an after-dinner tilt,
the very lance with which he had pierced to the heart of the enemy's
shield. If the ideal standard makes no headway against public opinion,
what encouragement to our hopes does common life offer?
As exquisite beauty of water, hill, and dale lies hidden in many a
country hamlet, unheeded by the guidebook, unsuspected by the traveller
on the turnpike road; so, in society, self-sacrifice, noble daring, and
saintly perseverance, nestle behind the prominent failure. We find them
everywhere, except where we should most naturally look for them.
There is in England a Society for the Promotion of Female Education in
the East. It undertakes to do _abroad_ precisely the work that its
individual members refuse to assist the community to do at home.
Consequently, their printed schemes read like satires on their
individual convictions. In the year 1835, Miss Alice Holliday called the
attention of this society to the condition of women in Egypt and
Abyssinia. She asked their sanction to her attempt to educate the women
of Egypt, with an ultimate view to those of Abyssinia, whose condition
chiefly interested her. She had pursued a severe course of study,
unfriended and alone, before she asked this help. She had studied the
severe sciences, the antiquities and customs of the countries
themselves, and the Arabic and Coptic languages. She was fortunate also
in stirring the enthusiasm of a certain Miss Rogers, who, unable to
teach, was yet willing to accompany her friend, and devote her fortune
to their mutual support. As these ladies wanted no money from the
society they consulted, they were received as agents without difficulty,
and reached Alexandria in the autumn of 1836. At this time Miss Holliday
wrote: "The condition of the Coptic women is truly lamentable. Their
abodes are like the filthiest holes in London; yet their persons are
decked out in the most costly apparel. I have seen ladies sitting at
their latticed windows, their heads and necks adorned with pearls and
diamonds of the highest value, their bodies covered with the richest
silks and velvets, while the room they occupied was the most disgusting
scene you can imagine. Smoking and sleeping occupy their time. Female
schools have never had an existence, and the prejudice against them is
very strong."
We can recall the argument used in those Eastern lands, and the answer
which civilization offered. "I am afraid to teach my women," said the
Turk: "they are already crafty and impure. To gather them into public
places is to offer a premium on immodesty, and a temptation to
misconduct." The Christian answered proudly, "We can trust our women;
yes, even in Paris and London."
Soon after their arrival, Miss Rogers died; but her friend was not
discouraged. In the following March, an officer of state, Hekekyan
Effendi, came to inquire whether she would take charge of the royal
women, one hundred in number, and the nearest relatives of the
sovereign. Much depended, it was thought, upon the co-operation of the
oldest daughter, Nas-lee Hanoom; and it was His Highness's desire that
the heads of the family should be formed into a committee to extend
female schools. See how this Mohammedan officer writes to Miss Holliday.
"You have no doubt read much about hareems," he says, "yet little, I
fear, that resembles the truth. We pay great respect to women and aged
persons, whatever may be our own rank. Our children, however, are
uneducated, in the European sense of the term. Besides being illiterate,
they know nothing of domestic economy; and, in the middling and lower
classes of the community, this ignorance is so profound as to endanger,
by its dire consequences, domestic health, peace, and prosperity. This
want is the first cause of slavery and its concomitant vices. In
seconding the illustrious efforts of Mehemet Ali, I have been able to
trace our debasement as a nation to _no other cause_ than the want of a
useful and efficient moral education for our women. In giving to them
enlightened education, we shall be striking at the root of the evils
that afflict us; we shall diminish the dangers and misfortunes which
proceed from ignorance and idleness. Habits of industry, cleanliness,
order, and economy, by increasing happiness, make us morally better, and
will secure that moral training to our children which no subsequent
effort is sufficient to replace."
So true is it that the value of words is comparative, that all this
might have been written by some Secretary of the Board of Education in
Massachusetts. The arguments of the Turk and Effendi are very familiar
to us. Modern civilized society shuts women out of schools to protect
their modesty. Modern professors tell us how much they respect women,
and value material training, at the very moment when they bar the gates
of life against her. On the 27th of March, 1838, Miss Holliday went in
state to the hareem. She was preceded by the two janissaries attached to
the English Consulate, bearing their silver wands of office, and
accompanied by the wife of Hekekyan. In the ante-room they were regaled
with coffee out of golden cups set with diamonds. Young Georgian girls
of great beauty brought sherbet and massive pipes with amber
mouth-pieces. They were then introduced to the Princess Nas-lee, a
little woman about forty, simply dressed; and, before the interview
ended, Alice had promised to spend four hours of every day in the
hareem. She began with instruction that tended to civilize daily life;
and boxes of embroidery and baby-clothes, made for patterns in England,
excited the first lively interest. She declined all invitations to take
up her abode in the hareem, although promised entire liberty. She was
_humble_, and, as a consequence, _wise_. She did not expect great
results, or look for much enthusiasm, in the hareem.
In August, she writes: "My visits have been attended with the most
cheering success. I am received and honored with every possible
distinction; but, added to my school, it is a great fatigue." Her
character in every way sustained the effect of her teaching. She was
offered thirty pounds a month for her attendance at the hareem, but
thought ten pounds sufficient, and would accept no more. In October, a
box of presents was received from England. When Hekekyan was invited to
look into this box, he seized upon some scientific plates sent to the
young princess. "Ah!" said he, "these are the things we need." The Pacha
was captivated, in his turn, by an orrery, and a model of the Thames
Tunnel. The hareem sent back a similar box, and Nas-lee herself worked a
scarf for the queen. Miss Holliday was soon ordered to translate some of
her books into Turkish; and her princesses wrote touching letters to
their English friends. Soon after, we find this indefatigable woman
teaching English, French, drawing, and writing, in the hareem of a late
Governor of Cairo. Education must begin with languages; for Egypt has no
literature to offer to her children. In 1840 Victoria sent to the hareem
a portrait of herself, which was carried in procession and hung with
proper honors by the side of that of the pacha. Very soon came an
Egyptian Society for the Promotion of Female Education. Scientific
instruments and books were ordered. An infant school began with one
hundred and fifty children. The hareem demanded another teacher, and
Mrs. Lieder was sent out. In 1844 a male school was formed, and European
teachers imported. The young girls, who had begun with needle-work eight
years before, were now studying Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, geography,
arithmetic, and drawing. "What a change," writes Alice in 1846,--"what a
change within the last ten years! When I came to Egypt, there was not a
woman who could read; and now some hundreds have not only the power, but
the best books. Year after year, I have been permitted to see the growth
of a new civilization. What a change has come over the royal family
since I first entered it! The desire for trifles is preparing the way
for our noblest gifts; and a fatal blow has been struck at the whole
system of hareems." It would be pleasant to trace this devoted woman
farther, to know whether she still lives, and if she has reached the
Abyssinian plains. In this humble way began the great educational
movement in Egypt, which gave strength and vitality to Mehemet Ali's
best-considered plans, which has sent scores of young princes to Paris,
and will eventually change the face of the whole land.
Alice Holliday succeeded, because the "sinews of war"--namely, the
"purse-strings"--were in her own hands. Very similar in spirit was the
enterprise of Madame Luce in Algiers, of which Madame Bodichon has given
an interesting account. Madame Luce went to Algiers, soon after the
conquest, about 1834, and was probably a teacher in the family of one of
the resident functionaries. In 1845, nearly nine years after Alice had
begun her Egyptian labors, Madame Luce was a widow, with very little
money to devote to the work on which she had set her heart; namely, a
school to civilize the women of Algiers. Government was already
beginning to instruct the men; but the Mohammedan dread of proselytism
stood in their way. The women were in the worst state,--closely veiled,
taught no manual arts, having no skill in housekeeping even,--for the
simple life of a warm climate, the scanty furniture, give no scope for
such skill. To wash their linen, to clamber over the roofs to make
calls, to offer coffee and receive it, to dress very splendidly at
times, very untidily always, was the synopsis of their lives. They did
not know their own ages, yet were liable to be sold in marriage at the
age of ten. Upon such material, and at such a time,--when the value of a
Moorish woman was estimated, like that of a cow, _by her
weight_,--Madame Luce undertook to work. She had a Christian courage in
her heart, which might put many a man to shame.
While laying her plans, she had perfected herself in the native tongue,
and now commenced a campaign among the families of her acquaintance,
coaxing them to trust their little girls to her for three or four hours
a day, that they might be taught to read and write French, and also to
sew neatly. Her presents, her philanthropic tact, her solemn promise not
to interfere in matters of religion, won for her, at length, four little
girls, whom she took to her own hired house without a moment's delay. As
the rumor of her success spread, one child after another dropped in,
till she had more than thirty. Finding the experiment answer beyond her
hopes, she was compelled to demand assistance of the local government.
Men have no faith in quixotic undertakings. As might have been expected,
they complimented Madame Luce upon her energy, saw no use in educating
Moorish women, and declined to assist her. She waited, in breathless
suspense, till the day on which the Council were to meet, bribing the
parents, clothing the children, and pursuing her noble work. "Surely,"
she thought, "they _will_ devise some plan;" but the twilight of the
30th of December closed in, and they had not even alluded to her school.
On the 1st of January, 1846, it was closed. Nine hundred miles from
Paris, without the modern conveniences of transport, what do you suppose
this woman did? Could she give up? She scorned an offer of personal
remuneration made by a few gentlemen, and told them that what she wanted
was adequate support for a national work. She pawned her plate, her
jewels, even a gold thimble, and set off for Paris, where she arrived
early in February, and sent in her report to the Minister of War. She
went in person from deputy to deputy, detailing her plans. Poor Madame
Luce! her success was not quite so speedy as Alice Holliday's, whose
schools had doubtless stimulated her efforts. Everywhere she had to
combat the scepticism, the indifference, the inertia, of worldly men.
There was no Miss Rogers, with a kind heart and a long purse, to help
her on her way. Nor did Madame Luce desire that there should be. She
knew that individual efforts of such a kind can never last long; and she
was determined to make the government adopt and become responsible for
her work. Then it would outlive her. Then it might redeem the nation. At
last, daylight began to dawn. The government gave her three thousand
francs for her journey, and eleven hundred more on account of some claim
of her deceased husband. They urged her return to Algiers, and promised
still farther support. So perseveringly had she wrought, that, early in
June, she was able to re-open her school, amid the rejoicings of parents
and children. It was seven months before the government contrived to put
the school on a better foundation. During this time, her pupils
constantly increased, and she was put to the greatest straits to keep it
together. The Curé of Algiers gave her a little money and a great deal
of sympathy. The Count Guyot, high in office, helped her from his own
purse. When she was entirely destitute, she would send one of her
negresses to him, and he would send her enough for the day. On one
occasion, he sent a small bag of money, left by the Duc de Nemours for
the benefit of a journal which had ceased to exist. She found in this
two hundred francs, which she received as a direct gift from Heaven.
Thus she got along from hand to mouth. She engaged an Arab mistress, who
was remarkably cultivated, to assist her, and to train the children in
her own faith. Pledged as she was not to instruct them in Christianity,
she had the sense to see, what few would have admitted, that such
instruction was not only necessary, but desirable. It gave them the
knowledge of one God, and made clear distinctions between right and
wrong. At last, in January, 1847, the school was formally adopted, and
received its first visit of inspection. The gentlemen were received by
thirty-two pupils, and the Arab mistress _unveiled_; a great triumph of
common sense, if we consider how short a time the school had been
opened. Since that time, the work has steadily prospered. In 1858 it
numbered one hundred and twenty pupils, between the ages of four and
eighteen. The practical wisdom of Madame Luce led her to establish a
workshop, where the older pupils learned the value of their labor, and
earned a good deal of money. They had always a week's work in advance,
when the wise, slow government put an end to it, whether to save the
thirty-five pounds a year, which the salary of its superintendent cost,
or to prevent competition with the nunneries, Madame Luce has never
known. _She_ thought it the best part of her plan,--far better than
teaching the girls to turn a French phrase neatly for the satisfaction
of inspectors. The government are now beginning to understand her value.
They have established a second school in Algiers, and several in the
provinces. The results are not miraculous, but they plant new germs of
moral power and thought in every family circle which they touch. Such
names as those of Alice Holliday and Madame Luce have a great value.
These women and their labors are permeated by the Christian idea of
self-surrender. The preponderance of this idea in these examples
distinguishes them above women of the past, whether German _exaltadas_,
brilliant adventurers amid the perils of the Froude, or witty loiterers
in the _salon_ of Madame de Sablé.
La Rochefoucauld, who was proud of Mademoiselle and her princesses,
would only have sneered at Madame Luce; nor would Lady Russell, nor Mrs.
John Adams, have followed Alice to Egypt cheerfully. Nor do these two
women belong to the army of saints and martyrs. A religious devotee has
in her a mistaken enthusiasm, and goes _away from_ the world. These
women are doing the work of saints and martyrs with a far higher
appreciation of God's providence, of the uses of this world, and with
all the hindrances that fall to the lot of simple human beings. It is
not our intention to multiply such instances here: they belong, rather,
to the illustrations of individual power. We must not forget, however,
the existence, in England, of that circle of women, of whom Mrs.
Bodichon, Mrs. Hugo Reid, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Jameson, and
Bessie Raynor Parkes, are honorable examples. We have such lives as
those of Mrs. Gaskell and Miss Evans; the scientific reputation not
alone of Mrs. Somerville, but of Mrs. Griffith, to whose masculine power
of research English marine botany may be said to owe its existence, and
who still survives, at an advanced age, to see that knowledge becomes
popular, in her cheerful and honored decline, which she pursued, for
many a year, unassisted and alone. We have Mrs. Janet Taylor, one of the
best and most popular teachers of navigation and nautical mathematics in
all England. Her classes have been celebrated and numerously attended by
men who have been long at sea, as well as by youths preparing for the
merchant service; and, still farther, we have in cultivated circles, to
balance the old prejudice, an encouraging liberality. A review,
published in the Westminster, after the issue of Miss Martineau's
pamphlet on the future government of India, shows conclusively that any
woman who will do _good_ work may feel sure of honest appreciation. If
she does poor work, she will only the more provoke the enemy. Nothing
could have been more ambitious than Miss Martineau's theme; but, when
she showed herself well qualified to handle it, no one had any
disposition to consider the choice unwomanly. Such criticisms are the
exponents of the century's experience. They betray the unconscious
drift of the public mind. A book is modest by the side of a pamphlet.
The former may wait its day: the latter aspires to immediate influence,
if it does any thing,--must mould the hour. It was once the chosen
weapon of Milton and Bolingbroke, later of Ward and Brougham. Is it
nothing, that a woman of advanced years, writing from an invalid's
chamber, feels herself competent to wield it? Was it nothing, when, by
her tracts on political economy, she gave an impulse to the middle
classes of her native land, for which busy political men could not find
time?
Is it not Godwin who says that "human nature is better read in romance
than history"? Every actual life falls short of its ideal; but a poem
dares demand some approximation to its standard from the whole world. In
this way, "Aurora Leigh," into which Mrs. Browning confesses she has
thrown her whole heart, is a wonderful indication of human thought and
feeling. In this country, there are many significant signs of progress.
The name of Maria Mitchell in astronomy; of the women engaged in the
Coast Survey; of the professors at Antioch, Vassar, and Oberlin,--are
familiarly known, and have their own power. Only lately, a Nashua
factory-girl takes the highest honors at the Oread Institute; and its
principal is willing to put her and two other graduates into competition
with any three college graduates in New England for examination
according to the curriculum. When she finished the education she had
first earned the money to procure, she left her Worcester home, and,
with quiet right-mindedness, went back to Nashua to labor for an
indigent family. As she tends her loom on the Jackson Corporation, she
will have leisure to investigate her _right_ to these acquisitions.
In support of this "exception," the superintendent of the New-York City
Schools, long ago, reported, that its female schools, whether by merit
of teachers or pupils or both, are of a much higher grade than the male
schools. Eighteen girls'-schools are superior, in average attainment, to
the very best boys'-school. He goes on to speak of the rapidity with
which women acquire knowledge, in terms which remind us of Margaret
Fuller, when she remarks of Dr. Channing, that it was not very pleasant
to read to him; "for," said she, "he takes in subjects more deliberately
than is conceivable to us feminine people, with our habits of ducking,
diving, or flying for truth." In speaking of her classes at Vassar
College, Miss Mitchell says (1865): "I have a class of seventeen pupils,
between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. They come to me for fifty
minutes every day. I allow them great freedom in questioning, and I am
puzzled by them daily. They show more mathematical ability, and more
originality of thought, than I had expected. I doubt whether young men
would show as deep an interest. Are there seventeen students in Harvard
College who take mathematical astronomy, do you think?"
At the session of the Michigan Legislature, held in 1857-8, petitions
were received, asking that women might be permitted to enjoy all the
advantages of the State University. The committee to whom the subject
was referred, took counsel with the older colleges at the East, whose
whole spirit and method is as much opposed to such an idea as that of
Oxford. The result was, that they reported against any change for the
present,--a report the more to be regretted, as Ann Arbor has a broader
University foundation than any institution within the limits of the
United States. The University has lately petitioned for a larger
endowment, and again an effort has been made to secure its advantages
for women; Theodore Tilton pleading before the committee in their
behalf, in February, 1867. We know of twenty-seven colleges in the
United States, open to men and women, of which Oberlin was the noble
pioneer.[6]
The highest culture has been claimed for women: it has been shown, that,
for two centuries, the ideal of such a culture has existed, but has been
depressed by an erroneous public opinion. There has, however, been a
steady growth in the right direction, which entitles us to ask for a
"revised and corrected" public opinion. The influence of mental culture
is a small thing by the side of that insinuating atmospheric power and
the customs of society which it controls. All educated men and women,
all liberal souls, therefore, should do their utmost to invigorate
public opinion. To allow no weakness to escape us, to challenge every
falsehood as it passes, to brave every insinuation and sneer, is what
duty demands. Can you not bear to be called "women's-rights women"? To
whom has the name ever been agreeable? Society gives the lie to your
purest instincts, and you bear it. It calls the truths you accept hard
names, and you are dumb. It throws stones, and you shrink behind some
ragged social fence, leaving a few weak women to stand the assault
alone.
What influence has the highest literary character of America, at this
moment, on the popular idea of women? "How much is there that we may not
say _aloud_," wrote Niebuhr to Savigny, "for fear of being stoned by the
stupid _good_ people!" and upon this principle the thinkers of our
society act; not a word escaping from their guarded homes to cheer the
more exposed workers.
Prescott stabbed Philip II. to the heart without a qualm. Ticknor could
give a life to the romance of old Spain. Froude has defended Henry VIII.
Our best poets sing verses that enslave, since the song of beauty echoes
always among tropical delights. "Barbara Frietchie" alone has been
written for us. When George Curtis blows his clarion, a courtly throng
come at the call. We yield with the rest to the charm of the lips on
which Attic bees once clustered. What honor do we pay the fair
proportions of the simple truth?
How can we settle questions of right and wrong for remote periods,
without knowing the faces of either in the street to-day? How shall any
one honor Margaret of Parma, and pity poor crazy Joan in Spain, and have
no heart for the heroism of Mary Patton? How unravel with patient study
the _tracasseries_ of Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart, yet ignore the
complications of the life he himself lives?
When Mary Patton had carried her ship round Cape Horn,--standing in a
parlor where the air was close, though the breezes that entered at its
open casement swept the Common as they came, a woman told, with newly
kindled enthusiasm, the story of that wonderful voyage. She gave her, in
warm words, her wifely and womanly due. "She saved the ship, God bless
her!" she said as she concluded; and another voice, that once was sweet,
responded, "More shame to her!"
"'More shame to her!'" repeated the first speaker, as if she had been
struck a sudden blow; and turning quickly towards the girl, beautiful,
well educated, carefully reared, who, in the fulness of her twenty
summers, found time for church-going, for clothing the poor, for elegant
study, for every thing but sympathy,--"More shame!" she repeated: "What!
for saving life and property?"--"Better that they should all have gone
to the bottom," returned her friend, "than that one woman should step
out of her sphere!" Ah! the Infinite Father knows how to educate the
public opinion that we need. Now and then he lifts a woman, as he did
Mary Patton, against her will out of her ordinary routine; and, while
all the world gaze at her with tender sympathy, they half accept the
coming future.
Does it sadden you, that we should repeat such words? They did not shock
the ears on which they fell; they met no farther rebuke than one
astonished question. Yet what did they represent? Not the public opinion
of Mary Patton. The New-York underwriters, when they voted her a
thousand dollars, were a fit gauge of that. It was the public opinion of
the "right of vocation" that the young girl unconsciously betrayed.
Harsh words die on our lips, as we think, "This girl's life is aimless.
_She_ would gladly do some noble work, but society does not help her.
She lacks courage to stand alone, and envies the very woman she
decries."
"Public opinion is of slow growth," you retort: "do not charge its
corruptions on the people of to-day."
The people of to-day are responsible for any corruptions which they do
not reject.
We have seen that the standard of womanly education does not lead where
it should, because controlled by a public opinion which demands too
little. It becomes us here to investigate the origin of that public
opinion, and to ask the meaning of the lives which have been lived in
its despite.