Originally published in the Times Argus/Rutland Herald Weekend Magazine, May 18, 2022 for the “Remember When” column with the title, “Female education, for happiness and cordiality“
Sampler made in Orange, Vermont, with text: “Made in school A.D. 1814 by Roxcinda Richardson” in the 9th year of her age.
(Vermont Historical Society)
“Whatever the fine ladies think of the matter, it is certain that the only rational ambition they can have must be to make obedient daughters, loving wives, prudent mothers and mistresses of families, faithful friends, and good Christians.”
From the “Of the peculiar Management of Daughters” in the August 14, 1802 edition of Randolph’s Weekly Wanderer
At a time when schooling was usually limited to subjects and skills deemed absolutely necessary to their future roles as wives and mothers, the above statement makes sense. But it was actually in an 1802 article written in support of furthering the formal education of young girls.
Two years earlier, Miss Ida Strong – considered to be the “pioneer of female education in this state “ by Vermont’s more famous first lady of education, Emma Willard – had begun instructing the “various branches of Female Education” at the Middlebury Female Seminary. And in her belief that girls should receive a more well-rounded and thorough education than had their mothers and grandmothers, she was not alone.
“Why are not females, as equally entitled as the other sex are?” a writer using the pseudonym Amicus asked the readers of the Vergennes Gazette on January 30, 1800. “Let the female be early educated in the elements of philosophy and the fine arts, and there is not the least shadow of doubt remaining, but that one will shine equally as splendid as the other in her literary pursuits.”
Was this Amicus fellow an early feminist?! No, not quite. Reading on, we find the real reason he supported the education of “the female sex.”
Amicus, like most people of his era, thought that the “natural” dispositions – i.e. decreed by God – of each sex determined their distinct gender roles. While he believed women capable of philosophical thought, he also maintained that the “occupations, which nature itself seems to have selected for the female, do not demand of her to ascend the sublime heights of philosophy… oratory… politics… victory… or [to] unfold the hidden mysteries of religion or… ascertain the dimensions of the planet.”
(Eighteen years after Amicus penned his bold assertion, the U.S.’s first female astronomer, Maria Mitchell, would be born in Massachusetts. He also seems to have conveniently forgotten the achievements of the first-century philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, Hypatia of Alexandria.)
Women, Amicus said, were naturally drawn to “the domestic concerns of the family, in the realms of peace and tranquility.” (And, credit where credit’s due, he adds here that these domestic concerns are “no less deserving of every distinguished honor.”)
The relationship between a woman’s “natural” inclinations and a call for their education may not at first glance seem clear. Education, from a modern point of view, is about gaining knowledge and skills in order to make a living, contribute to our communities, and grow as individuals and as a society. Well, that may also have been the case two hundred years ago… for men.
But education for women? That was, ultimately, also for the menfolk. And the men’s friends and their children.
According to Randolph’s Weekly Wanderer, to find a “proper” place in society and be a “suitable companion and helpmeet for a man of sense,” a young woman should learn needlework plus the three R’s , without which a woman would not be capable of keeping the family’s accounts.
Additionally, without some “acquaintance with geography and history, a woman’s conversation must be confined within a very narrow compass…and [her husband’s and his friends’] entertainment in her conversation be very much abridged.” This was important in communities whose structure and well-being were deeply dependent on social acceptance. (According to Holly V. Izard, early New England was “a face-to-face world” where the economy was “predicated on social relationships… and embedded in friendship and community equilibrium.”)
Amicus would have been well aware of this and believed women held much responsibility in this arena. “The female, whose mind is richly stored with useful information, added to the liveliness of her imagination, and the greatness of her sensibility,” he wrote, “will never fail to afford an inexhaustible source of pleasure to those who are nearest allied to her in the indissoluble ties of friendship.”
If that was not high enough an expectation, Amicus was also concerned by the public embarrassment a woman could cause her husband if “more pains were [not] taken… to decorate the mind with useful knowledge.” This embarrassment, he believed, could spill over into something far worse: “family discontents and local animosities.” A family’s unhappiness, claimed Amicus, is in “direct proportion to the inequality of the sexual educations.”
And we can’t forget the importance of educating women for the sake of the future generation. According to Amicus, “women’s work” should be considered the “very nursery of true greatness” because when girls and young women were provided a “noble foundation” built on the “principles of virtue and refinement,” they would naturally pass them along to their children. This idea was integral to a philosophy which gained popularity after 1780 called by some historians “Republican Motherhood”:
“The importance of female education cannot be disputed, when we consider that the seeds of future greatness are always sown by the hand of the tender mother,” argued the Green Mountain Patriot in August 1801. Amicus agreed, writing, “the best part of the education of youth falls under the jurisdiction of the female sex, and it is of the greatest moment that their tender minds be impressed with the purest sentiments.”
Advertisements for girls’ schools, then, assured parents that they would be “devoted to improving and refining the intellect, taste… morals” and conduct of the students.
And so, two-hundred-years ago, some Vermonters championed “the absolute necessity of female education [to] disseminat[e] the seeds of virtue in the minds of youth,” but also to “smooth their manners and add delicacy to their sentiments,” in order to render them “fitter companions and better bosom friends.”
While at the beginning of the nineteenth-century more female-only schools began to open – a subject this column will look at next month – which may have led the way to the equal access to education Vermont children enjoy today, we can be thankful we no longer “initiate their daughters at an early period into useful seminaries” solely for the purpose of “more happiness and cordiality blended in the sexes.”
Vermont When... 