St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1907-08-17
Copyright, by Joseph B. Bowles.)

Miss Sadie American has won a wide
reputation through her connection with
forward educational movements. AS a
member of the International Council of
Women and of the National Council of
Jewish Women she has taken a promi-
nent part in the proceedings of those in
fuential organizations. Though now a
resident of New York, some of her most
valuable and lasting work has been done
In Chicago, where she was largely instru-
mental in establishing the system of va
cation schools. Her work for municinal
Fairgrounds for children also put in mo-
ton movement which has had excel
lent results. Miss Americans persistent
efforts along these lines were due to her
knoWledge of the needs of the congested
districts where she worked in the in
tsrests of poor women and to gain light
on the grave problem of juvenile delin-
quency)
With the enrolling tide of civiliza.
ton woman finds herself carried into
positions of responsibility and action
she has not before occupied Of the
swelling waves none has risen higher
than that of education, OF whose crest
she finds herself.
Looking back she finds-what? From
time immemorial woman has been
treated as possession, toy. She
has been educated, when educated at
all, to the end that she may please
men. Education says Nicholas MUIR
ra. Butler, lis the adaptation to en-
Vironment and the development of
power to modify environment" In the
sense of the first half of the definition
woman has been Observation-Disclosures
to the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS by
the will and the wishes of man. AS
she has risen to heights of clearer
vision or nobler ideas to which she
has responded her education has been
modified and broadened until to-day
we see the second half of the defini-
ton being carried into effect and wo-
mans education following along lines
and In ways tending to develop power
ito modify environment"
Individual men there have been al
ways who have seen the part and
place woman should have in educa-
ton, but until their cumulative infiu-
ence was felt their ideals could not
be realized nor could their ideas be
carried into effect. So have there been
women always who, rising above their
environment by individual effort, have
gained for themselves and sometimes
for others broader education than
was the rule of their day, and lave
disproved the, contention that it's eff
feet was evil. But they have scarcely
aRected or accelerated the movement
of education or had part or place in
it until within the century just past.
1t is, after all, In our own century
and in our own country that our inter-
est centers, not only because it is
closest to us, but because SO rapid has
been the advance made therein that
the foregoing centuries seem much
farther away than the actual passage
of years warrants their appearing.
Woman's part and place In educa-
ton naturally divides itself into three
lines-those of pupil, teacher and mo-
Their interested in the welfare of her
children or influenced by that feeling
of the mother spirit which, though per-
chance denied the joys of motherhood,
must needs take up its duties.
Toward the end of the tenth century
came the awakening of woman with
the awakening of mankind to grea Ter
possibilities in and for men than had
been dreamed of before. It was the
individual who was being considered,
the individual and his right, not the
individual and his duties.
Lady Mary Mortley Montague
wrote: 1--WE are permitted no books
but such as tend to the weakening
and effeminating of our minds" And
our own Abigail Adams says, in one of
her letters: 1T is fashionable to ridi-
cule female learning" Both instan-
cling the new attitude Of dissatisfac-
ton with existing conditions. The very
use of the word female" is itself an
Indication of the attitude toward the
education of women. 1t was female
as opposed to "male"-femaIe educa-
ton, female learning, female schools
always the sex difference uppermost
in mind
1t was well into the second half of
the nineteenth century before the wo-
man replaced the female and, unhap-
PLY, wrote herself with a capital w.
Perhaps 1t was necessary then-it is
no longer so-and to-day, if we read
the times Alright, we may see the
signs of a healthy reaction toward a
world of men and women spelled with
equal letters.
In the establishment of the common
schools the thought Of our fathers was
that the boys might learn to read BIZ
bile, ballot and blue laws-the making
Of men was not the schools concern,
nor was there need that it should be,
for in the days when men were con-
quering the soil and subduing wild
nature to their needs life itself was a
liner schooling than any which books
could give. It was the time for deeds,
not words-the time when all were
compelled to lead the strenuous life
as the very price Of existence-when
1t was a much simpler thing than it
can be under the complex conditions
Of today.
The same conditions held good Of
women as of men; their life, too, was
strenuous; they, too, needed to do-to
do the, simple tasks of daily living, to
cook, to brew, to wash, to spin, to
weave, to knit, to manage with care
and economy affairs within the house
while the men were conquering adj
verse conditions without, The school
was supplemented by the training in
the house which the girls got at their
mothers side. Meager and Inadequate
as the provision for their education
seems to US, 1t was not so entirely in
adequate. At no time more than to-