St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1907-08-17

! more and more into diSuse. They
erred on the one side, perhaps, in the
| past; we, on the other, and now that
100 years experience has proved that
| pure mental training is inadequate to
| make the men and women pictured by
those who advocated it as the panacea
for the woes of the world, we are max
ing increasing and unceasfng efforts
| to give back to the girls something OF
the healthful sturdiness which. comes
| from doing-doing with the hands
which seem to have lost their useful
| nees, doing the common, necessary
| things of daily life-the cooking, wash
ing, sewing-with the dignity with
which they were done by the old colo
| NAL danes.
When the first DANES school was
| opened in New England woman was
| hired to take children on her knee to
| teach them the alphabet, the New Eng
| land primer, the shorter catechism
and manners. No provision was made
for girls over nine years old. From
another report we CLEAN that girls
were sent to school to learn proper
decency of behavior, spelling and read
ing sufficient to read the Bible and, if
parents deemed it necessary, needle
work and knitting; to which was
sometimes added music and drawing
to complete liberal education"
Toward the end of the eighteenth
century girls over nine years old were
given some little instruction in the
boys school by the masters during va
cation, which was the wedge opening
the way for the entrance of women
to the higher schools and colleges.
And there has been no time since
when back of those who secured the
hew privileges there was not an ever
increasing number clamoring for these
privileges themselves.
In the endowment, encouragement
and establishment of higher schools
for women men have seemed to play
the greater part; they have been in
the forefront of the movement; but it
has gained force and momentum, as
alone it could, from the awakened de-
sire in the women themselves to get
all they could of education. The lead
ers worked for women, but until Wo-
men worked for themselves no great
advance could be made.
One who saw the possibilities for
women in the broader education was
the Rev. Joseph Emerson of Byf1eld,
Mass, whose influence was epoch
making and whose pupils became pio-
neers in the higher education of wo-
men, Notable was Mary Lyon, founder
of Mount Holyoke seminary, estab-
lished that those of moderate means
might have within their reach more
liberal education" The personality Of
the founder made it center Of wide
and benefcent influence and it be-
came the model for many schools. An
other whose work was of signal i'm
portance was Mrs. Emma Willard
whose address to the New York legis-
lature was farreaching in its results;
sane, comprehensive full of high COM
mon sense, it deserves careful atten-
ton to-day. In it Mrs. Willard asks
that institutions for girls be endowed
by the state as well as for boys. /. /.
to keep the daughters of the rich from
being frivolous and the daughters of
the poor from being drudges." She Ia
ments that .'the education of one sex
has been to please the other" "Reli-
gion and morality teach that we are
primary existences," she says, that
it is for us to move In the orbit OF our
duty around the lonely center of per
lection; the companions, not the sat
elites of nen." Her school estab-
lished in Troy, N. Y, was the first OF
its kind to receive state aid, thus es-
tablishing the principle of the duty OF
the state to educate it's girls as well
as it's boys and making a precedent
which was to be largely followed. 1t
became the model of large number
of institutions north and south, with a
curriculum the most comprehensive OF
it's time.
Epoeh-making as was the establish
ment of these schools, they were but
milestones on the road, though to
many they seemed the very end. Their
| followers created the finishing
school," which in some parts of the
country still drags on a weary exist
ence. but on the whole may be said to
be almost dead Do we realize, won
der, how short time it is since all
girls were finished" at school? What
q change of attitude from the Finish
ing school" to the college, whose mem
bers study that they may begin to
learn! But the seminary ut Troy was
a tremendous beginning. Horace
Mann, fighting for opportunities for
women as primary existences" on a
par with men, had to leave the con-
sentative east and go to the open
hearted west to found school where
men and women equally should have
entrance-at Antioch, o.
Progress was slow for time, but
from 1859, when Boston university
opened its doors to women, it has
been rapid and to-day there is scarcely
a college of note which has not made
some provision for women to have the
advantage of the service of its faculty
and equipment, while the state col.
leges are open to women and men
alike.
Naturally the increased advantage
offered brought marked results to wo.
men as teachers, and teaching from
being despised as a calling has come
to be one of the most respected pro-
LESSONS.
From time long past woman has had
charge of the education of woman, but
Aunder the direction of man; women
| have taught women, but naturally
oa,Id iyovor+ NJ xooro fbar %hov kuow