An Appeal to American Women : Part 1

American Woman's Home
by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Page 40 of 41)

My honored countrywomen:

It is now over forty years that I have been seeking to elevate the character and condition of our gender, relying, as to earthly aid, chiefly on your counsel and cooperation. I am sorrowful at results that have followed these and similar efforts and ask your sympathy and aid.

Let me commence with a brief outline of the past. I commenced as an educator in the city of Hartford, Ct., when only the primary branches and one or two imperfect accomplishments were the ordinary school education and was among the first pioneers in seeking to introduce some of the higher branches. The staid, conservative citizen's queried of what use to women were Latin, Geometry and Algebra and wondered at a request for six recitation rooms and a study-hall for a school of nearly a hundred, who had as yet only one room. The appeal was then made to benevolent, intelligent women and by their influence all that was sought was liberally bestowed.

But the course of study then attempted was scarcely half of what is now pursued in most of our colleges for young women, while there has been added a round and extent of accomplishments then unknown. Yet this moderate amount so stimulated brain and nerves and so excited competition, that it became needful to enforce a rule, requiring a daily report, that only two hours a day had been devoted to study out of school hours. Even this did not avail to save from injured health both the teacher who projected these improvements and many of her pupils. This example and that of similar institutions spread all over the nation, with constantly increasing demand for more studies and decreasing value and respect for domestic pursuits and duties.

Ten years of such intellectual excitement exhausted the nervous fountain and my profession as a school-teacher was ended.

The next attempt was to introduce Domestic Economy as a science to be studied in schools for girls. For a while it seemed to succeed; but ere long was crowded out by Political Economy and many other economies, except those most needed to prepare a woman for her difficult and sacred duties.

In the progress of years, it came to pass that the older States teemed with educated women, qualified for no other department of woman's profession but that of a schoolteacher, while the newer States abounded in children without schools.

I again appealed to my countrywomen for help, addressing them through the press and also by the assistance of a brother (in assemblies in many chief cities) in order to raise funds to support an agent. The funds were bestowed and therefore the services of Governor Slade were secured, and, mainly by these agencies, nearly one thousand teachers were provided with schools, chiefly in the West.

Meantime, the intellectual taxation in both private and public schools, the want of proper ventilation in both families and schools, the want of domestic exercise which is so valuable to the feminine constitution, the pernicious modes of dress and the prevailing neglect of the laws of health, resulted in the general decay of health among women. At the same time, the overworking of the brain and nerves and the "cramming" system of study, resulted in a deficiency of mental development which is very marked. It is now a subject of general observation that young women, at this day, are decidedly inferior in mental power to those of an earlier period, notwithstanding their increased advantages. For the mind, crowded with undigested matter, is debilitated the same as is the body by over-feeding,

Recent scientific investigations give the philosophy of these results. For example, Professor Houghton, of Trinity College, Dublin, gives as one item of protracted experiments in animal chemistry, that two hours of severe study abstracts as much vital strength as is demanded by a whole day of manual labor. The reports of the Massachusetts Board of Education add other facts that, in this connection, should be deeply pondered.

For example, in one public school of eighty-five pupils only fifty-four had refreshing sleep; fifty-nine had headaches or constant weariness and only fifteen were perfectly well. In this school it was found and similar facts are common in all our public and high schools, that, in addition to six school-hours, thirty-one studied three hours and a half; thirty-five, four hours; and twelve, from four to seven hours. And yet the most learned medical men maintain that the time devoted to brain labor, daily, should not exceed six hours for healthy men and three hours for growing children.

Alarmed at the dangerous tendencies of female education, I made another appeal to my gender, which resulted in the organization of the American Woman's Education Association, the object being to establish endowed professional schools, in connection with literary institutions, in which woman's profession should be honored and taught as are the professions of men and where woman should be trained for some self-supporting business.

From this effort several institutions of a high literary character have come into existence at the West, but the organization and endowment of the professional schools is yet incomplete from many combining impediments, the chief being a want of appreciation of woman's profession and of the science and training which its high and sacred duties require. But the reports of the Association will show that never before were such superior intellectual advantages secured to a new country by so economical an outlay.

Let us now look at the dangers which are impending. And first, in regard to the welfare of the family state, the decay of the female constitution and health has involved such terrific sufferings, in addition to former cares and pains of maternity, that multitudes of both genders so dread the risks of marriage as either to avoid it, or meet them by methods always injurious and often criminal. Not only so, multitudes of intelligent and conscientious persons, in private and by the press, unaware of the penalties of violating nature, openly impugn the inspired declaration, "Children are a heritage of the Lord."

About the Author

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800 - 1878) was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was a white American abolitionist and novelist, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain.