History 102 –Fall 2009
Learning Module 2 - Extra Credit
Republican Wives, Republican Mothers[1]
Overview:
In this activity, you will be asked to consider the rights of women in Revolutionary America. To prepare, read “Republican Ideology” and “Women & the Limits of Republican Citizenship,” in Chapter 6.
In this activity, you will learn two approaches to “female
education” in the early years of this nation, the first Benjamin Rush and the
second by “A Matron from
Links to these two documents are shown below.
Timing / Assessment
· Submit on or before October 5
·
Assessment: Up to 30 points.
Documents:
Requirements
of the Activity.
·
Part I
(20 pts): Submit answers to the following questions for each of the documents.
Questions:
1. What is the author’s attitude regarding the value of education for the future generation?
2. What are the specific characteristics that this education should include? Is it the same for sons and daughters? Provide one example, either as a quotation or specific item.
3. How does education relate to the larger issue of securing a strong nation, according to the author?
·
Part II
(10 pts): Write a short reflection that compares the attitudes of each
author toward a woman’s role as a citizen in the new nation of the
Female
Education
Benjamin
Rush, "Thoughts upon Female Education, Accommodated to the
“In Frederick Rudolph, ed., Essays on Education in The Early Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965),
pp. 27‑40.
Decrying European models of
women's education, full of aristocratic pretense, Rush posited that the women
in the new American republic demanded a new type of education‑one
not available in
This significant lecture, it
should be noted, was directed toward men ("Gentlemen"), presumably
the fathers of students and trustees of the
Gentlemen,
I
have yielded with diffidence to the solicitations of the Principal of the Academy,
in undertaking to express my regard for the prosperity of this seminaryof learning by submitting to your candor a few
thoughts upon female education.
The
first remark that I shall make upon this subject is that female education
should be accommodated to the state of society, manners, and government of the
country in which it is conducted.
This
remark leads me at once to add that the education of young ladies in this
country should be conducted upon principles very different from what it is in
There
are several circumstances in the situation, employments, and duties of women in
1. The early marriages of
our women, by contracting the time allowed for education, renders
it necessary to contract its plan and to confine it chiefly to the more useful
branches of literature.
II. The state of property in
111. From the numerous
avocations to which a professional life exposes gentlemen in
IV. The equal share that
every citizen has in the liberty and the possible share he may have in the
government of our country make it necessary that our ladies should be qualified
to a certain degree, by a peculiar and suitable education, to concur in
instructing their sons in the principles of liberty and government.
V. In Great Britain the
business of servants is a regular occupation, but in America this humble
station is the usual retreat of unexpected indigence; hence the servants in
this country possess less knowledge and subordination than are required from
them; and hence our ladies are obliged to attend more to the private affairs
of their families than ladies generally do of the same rank in Great Britain. .
. . This circumstance should have great influence upon the nature and extent of
female education in
The
branches of literature most essential for a young lady in this country appear
to be:
I
A knowledge of the English language. She should not only read but
speak and spell it correctly. And to enable her to do this, she should be
taught the English grammar and be frequently examined in applying its rules in
common conversation.
II
Pleasure and interest
conspire to make the writing of a fair and legible hand a necessary branch of
female education. For this purpose she should be taught not only to shape every
letter properly but to pay the strictest
regard to points and capitals....
III Some knowledge of figures
and bookkeeping is absolutely necessary to qualify a young lady for the duties
which await her in this country. There are certain occupations in which she may
assist her husband with this knowledge, and should she survive him and
agreeably to the custom of our country be the executrix of his will, she cannot
fail of deriving immense advantages from it.
IV An acquaintance with
geography and some instruction in chronology will enable a young lady to read
history, biography, and travels, with advantage, and thereby qualify her not
only for a general intercourse with the world but to be an agreeable companion
for a sensible man. To these branches of knowledge may be added, in some
instances, a general acquaintance with the first principles of astronomy and
natural philosophy, particularly with such parts of them as are calculated to
prevent superstition, by explaining the causes or obviating the effects of
natural evil.
V
Vocal music should never be
neglected in the education of a young lady in this country. Besides preparing
her to join in that part of public worship which consists in psalmody, it will
enable her to soothe the cares of domestic life....
VI Dancing is by no means an
improper branch of education for an American lady. It promotes health and
renders the figure and motions of the body easy and agreeable....
VII The attention of our young ladies should be directed as soon as they
are prepared for it to the reading of history, travels, poetry, and moral essays.
These studies are accommodated, in a peculiar manner, to the present state of
society in
VIII It will be necessary to
connect all these branches of education with regular instruction in the
Christian religion. For this purpose the principles of the different sects of
Christians should be taught and explained, and our pupils should early be
furnished with some of the most simple arguments in
favor of the truth of Christianity. A portion of the Bible (of late improperly
banished from our schools) should be read by them every day and such questions
should be asked, after reading it, as are calculated to imprint upon their
minds the interesting stories contained in it....
IX. If the measures that
have been recommended for inspiring our pupils with a sense of religious and
moral obligation be adopted, the government of them will be easy and agreeable.
I shall only remark under this head that strictness
of discipline will always render severity
unnecessary and that there will be the most instruction in that school
where there is the most order....
It
should not surprise us that British customs with respect to female education
have been transplanted into our American schools and families.... It is high
time to awake from this servility‑to study our
own character‑to examine the age of our country‑and to adopt manners in everything that shall
be accommodated to our state of society and to the forms of our government. In
particular it is incumbent upon us to make ornamental accomplishments yield to
principles and knowledge in the education of our women.|
A
philosopher once said, "let me make all the ballads of a country and I
care not who makes its laws." He might with more propriety have said, let
the ladies of a country be educated properly, and they will not only make and
administer its laws, but form its manners and character. It would require a
lively imagination to describe, or even to comprehend, the happiness of a
country where knowledge and virtue were generally diffused among the female
sex. Our young men would then be restrained from vice by the terror of being
banished from their company.... A double‑entendre in
their presence would then exclude a gentleman forever from the company of both
sexes and probably oblige him to seek an asylum from contempt in a foreign
country.
The
influence of female education would be still more extensive and useful in
domestic life. The obligations of gentlemen to qualify themselves by knowledge
and industry to discharge the duties of benevolence would be increased by
marriage; and the patriot‑the hero‑and the legislator would find the sweetest
reward of their toils in the approbation and applause of their wives. Children
would discover the marks of maternal prudence and wisdom in every station of
life, for it has been remarked that there have been few great or good men who
have not been blessed with wise and prudent mothers....
To
you, therefore, young ladies, an important problem is committed for solution;
and that is, whether our present plan of education be a wise one and whether it
be calculated to prepare you for the duties of social and domestic life. I know
that the elevation of the female mind, by means of moral, physical, and
religious truth, is considered by some men as unfriendly to the domestic
character of a woman. But this is the prejudice of little minds and springs
from the same spirit which opposes the general diffusion of knowledge among the
citizens of our republics. If men believe that ignorance is favorable to the
government of the female sex, they are certainly deceived, for a weak and
ignorant woman will always be governed with the greatest difficulty.
A Matron of
The Female Advocate, Written
by a Lady (New Haven, CT: Thomas Green
& Son, 1801), pp. 21‑40 passim.
The outspoken author
of The Female Advocate (1801), who identified herself only as "a
matron" of
Asserting that both sexes
had been equally endowed with "quality of genius, of talent, of morals,
as well as intellectual worth," the
Much
and often has the world exclaimed against masculine women. Before I offer any
sentiment on this exclamation, I would wish to hear the word properly and
fairly defined. If by the epithet "Masculine," be meant a bold,
assuming, haughty, arrogant, all sufficient, dogmatic temper and spirit, I
would wish totally and entirely to discard it from the society of the fair sex.
I would wish the term to be applied, where I think it is appropriate, by long
established custom. I am quite willing that the other sex should share it
altogether to themselves. But if by the word "Masculine," be meant a
person of reading and letters, a person of science and information, one who can
properly answer a question, without fear and trembling, or one who is capable
of doing business, with a suitable command over self, this I believe to be a
glory to the one sex, equally with the other. The sole reason why the epithet
is disgraceful, in the estimation of many, is because custom, which is not
infallible, has gradually introduced the habits of seeing an imaginary
propriety, that all science, all public utility, all superiority, all that is
intellectually great and astonishing, should be engrossed exclusively by the
male half of mankind. But may I not securely say, that it is a point of great
consequence, that we should have an equal share in science, of that degree of
education, at least, which enables us, in some measure, to have command over
ourselves, and become superior to those base artifices of the many, by which
numerous females, through the want of suitable privileges in education, have
been the dupes of men inferior to themselves, in every other respect but this
single advantage, of education.
Are
we not sensible, my female friends, and have we not often heard it observed, by
the other sex, as an objection to our possessing peculiar advantages for
scientific improvements, that they cannot so easily command the ascendancy over
us; but why should we wish them to have this dominion, if we are not sensible
that that is often, and may I not say, almost always, the reason and
foundation of our ruin. A young lady of the greatest purity of mind, yet
uneducated, is frequently a victim to the arts of seduction: differently advantaged
by knowledge, the seducer would have respected her virtues, and conducted with
becoming deference. Thus, a second advantage would be the consequence of
female education. It would reform the men, or at least prevent, or restrain,
many of those artifices, which are now too successfully used, with innocent,
uneducated, and unsuspecting females....
But
why is the fair book of knowledge hidden from our research? Why it is no
farther disclosed to our view? Do we deserve the reproach of those men, who, in
all the pride of scholastic literature, depreciate our natural talents? ...
Plutarch, speaking of the sexes, says, "The talents and virtues are
modified by the circumstances, but the foundation is the same.". . .
Why
then may not all the seeming difference between the sexes, be imputed solely
to the difference of their education and subsequent advantages? Here let us
draw a just and plain parallel between the education of a sister and her
brother. Perhaps they are sent to the same school, till the age of ten, or
twelve years. Here the advantages of their improvement are the same, and their
actual augmentation of mind is equal, unless there be
a real superiority of genius, in the female youth, which is a case not
unusual. Behold the arbitrary distinctions where are, next, made between them.
The brother is taken from a common school, and transmitted to an academy, or a
collegiate life; next becomes a divine, a lawyer, or physician; the whole term
of time including usually from seven to nine years. But how is the time of his
sister occupied, after she is taken from her early school? Immediately she is
removed from every mean of literary improvement, and almost as effectually
immured in a house, as a roman catholic Nun. She is
admitted to walk in no road of preferment, and has before her, no incentive to
aspire to public utility, by superior enlargement of mind. No! That is not the
path for her to walk. Science and public utility are exclusively appropriated
to the males. See the invariable sister's fate! If she be not sent to a
nunnery, she is at least confined to domestic labor, and utterly secluded from
all public concerns.
If
not thus limited, she must have what the world calls a polite education: such
as dancing, music, embroidering, altering and adjusting the fashion of her
apparel. I have heard it, and I think very justly, observed, as an apology for
females when frequently conversing, and being more disposed than the men, to
talk of fashion, dress, amusements, and the polite customs of the fair world,
that the former were precisely following the natural and almost necessary effect
of their appropriate education. A young Miss is taught to esteem it of the
utmost consequence to her success in life, that she be dressed fashionably, and
observe the external graces. It requires but a small share of sagacity for her
to discern, that unless she pay more attention to outward ornaments, than intellectual
endowments, she will not be noticed by the other sex, on whom is her dependence
for a partner, or, shall I say, "master," for life. For high intellectual
endowments, she would rather be avoided, in the view of a connection for life,
as these would be qualities incompatible with that arbitrary sovereignty, which
the man would wish to have fully established in his domestic empire. To such a
man, when she is united by the dearest ties, how are the best of her days, and
the prime of her life to be devoted? In a way truly, which I
acknowledge to be highly beneficial; in the employments of the house and the
nurturing of children, and imbruing their tender minds with the early precepts
of true wisdom. But beneficial as it may be, does not this confined mode
of living, and devoting our rolling years, afford sufficient arguments, why
females do not advance in literary acquisitions, and the knowledge of men and
manners, and the concerns of more public utility so far as the other sex....
But
to return from this digression to the importance and justness of admitting the
idea of an equality between the sexes; how greatly doth a man of science
misjudge in choosing a companion for life, if he selects one from the class of
ignorant and untaught, that he may, by this mean, the more securely retain his
favorite supremacy. Is it not a total blindness to the ideas of refined happiness,
arising from a reciprocity of sentiments and the exchange of rational
felicity, as well as an illiberal prejudice, thus to conduct? Shall the woman
be kept ignorant, to render her more docile in the management of domestic
concerns? How capable is such a person of being a companion for a man of
refinement? How miserably capable of augmenting his social joys, or managing
prudently the concerns of a family, or educating his children? Is it not of
the utmost consequence, that the tender mind of the youth receives an early
direction for future usefulness? And is it not equally true, that the first
direction of a child necessarily becomes the immediate and peculiar province
of the woman? And may I not add, is not a woman of a capacious and well stored
mind, a better wife, a better widow, a better mother, and a better neighbor;
and shall I add, a better friend in every respect? ...
...
When women, no longer the humble dependent, or the obsequious slave, but the
companion and friend, is party to an attachment founded on mutual esteem, then,
and not till then, does man assume his intended rank in the scale of creation.
Why should women be called the weaker sex, when it is acknowledged, that they
take much more care of their reputation, than the men?
As
I observed before, that a woman of information, and one viewed by her husband
as a companion, made the better wife and better widow, I beg leave to state a
supposition, as I imagine to the point. Suppose one who has from her youth been
indoctrinated and habituated to sentiments of female inferiority, one who has
never been suffered to have an opinion of her own, but on the reverse, has been
taught, and accustomed to rely, and implicitly believe, right or wrong, on her
parents, guardians, or husband. What will be the consequence of all this, in a
situation when deprived of the counsel of either or all of them, she is necessitated
to act for herself, or be exposed to the fraudulence of an unfriendly world?
Perhaps she is left a widow, with a large property, and a flock of small
dependent children? But where have they to look for protection, or on whom to
rely, but on their insufficient, helpless mother? How poorly capable is she to
fill the vacancy, and act to her tender babes and orphans, in their bereaved
situation, as is absolutely necessary, both as father and mother? How incapable
also is she of assisting in the settlement and adjustment of the estate; how liable
to fraud, and how probable to be injured by unreal, or
exaggerated debts.
...
No less unhappy is the consequence that follows the unfortunate wife, who has
been kept in her leading strings all her days, and has no idea of taking the
management of any business upon her unassisted self. Her husband views himself
her guide and protector, treating her more as a child, or riper servant, than
as a companion and friend. The good‑hearted woman has lived all her days
in ease and affluence, having never tasted the bitter cup of poverty, nor
affliction. She thinks that her mountain standeth
strong, and she shall never be moved. But perhaps through her ignorance, or her
husband's extravagance, they live far beyond their abilities.... The
consequence is that the unhappy family is left destitute of the comforts, yea,
of the very necessaries of life. Alas, the unhappy woman! What a sudden
transition from affluence to poverty, from prosperity to extreme wretchedness.
All this, not infrequently ends in a state of insanity, as well as total
ruin....
Perhaps
these lines may chance to meet the eye of one, whose soul may yet be troubled,
not withstanding all his stock of science, with spleen of criticism, and
prejudiced jealousy against our sex. Surely such will say,
what miserable language is this! What bad grammar! Surely she does not round
her periods! She had better been at her needle work, or the distaff! Friend, I
will spare you all this labor of criticism. I acknowledge all my want of
literary improvement; but yet I am not willing to ascribe it to want of mental
powers, but the disadvantages attending my education. . . . Should any presume
to say, that some man of letters has hidden behind the curtain, to guide the
movements of my pen, this I shall positively deny, and subjoin with the
Authoress of the "Gleaner."* My "nearest friend is totally ignorant
of this performance, and is an utter stranger to every line, till he may see it
from the press."