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WITH A KNACK FOR RESEARCH - MATILDA
JOSLYN GAGE
On the Progress of Education and
Industrial Avocations for Women
It follows the full text transcript of
Matilda Joslyn Gage's speech On the Progress
of Education and Industrial Avocations for Women, delivered
in 1871.
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Twenty years ago, |
the first National
Woman's Rights Convention was held in Worcester,
Massachusetts, and was presided over by our
present honored Chairman, Mrs. Davis.
The reform had for years been agitated in a
small way, and conventions had been held at
different points but, until the Worcester
Convention, none of these had arisen to the
dignity of national.
Great has been the change since that Convention,
whose second decade we celebrate, and it has
fallen upon me to especially call your attention
to the advanced educational facilities enjoyed
by the women of 1870, compared with those
enjoyed by the women of 1850, and which are the
legitimate outgrowth of the woman movement.
The progress of education for women for years
was very slow. Although the first grant of land
in the United States for a public school-house
was made by a woman, it was not the sex to which
she belonged that enjoyed its benefits. Even the
common-school system of Massachusetts, which is
pointed to with so much pride, was originated
for boys alone. Thomas Hughes, in his Boston
speech the other day, declared that England had
derived her educational inspiration from the
common school system of Massachusetts. It was
the admission of girls to its benefits, an
admission primarily made by certain districts to
secure their quota of school money. It was the
admission of girls to common-school advantages,
which made of that system what it now is.
Twenty years ago girls stood upon an equality
with boys in common-schools, but not elsewhere
had they equal educational advantages. Two
colleges at that time, Oberlin and Antioch,
professed to admit women upon an equality, but
in 1850, no woman in them was allowed to
deliver, or even read her own graduating
oration. Her presence upon the platform was
considered out of place, and if her thoughts
were given to the world, the college demanded
their utterance through a man's mouth.
In looking over the Holliday library recently
sold at auction in this city, I found a book of
political caricatures. They were English-coarse,
colored wood-prints, but very sharp and
laughable. One of them represented a noted
politician with a speaking trumpet to his mouth,
but he did not give utterance to his own
thoughts, for the trumpet passed through the
head and out of the mouth of another man. Just
so at Oberlin, twenty years ago, were the
orations of women graduates trumpeted to the
world through a man's mouth. But in 1853, such
had already been the advance of public opinion
in regard to woman's opportunities, that Oberlin
College authorities granted its lady graduates
permission to read their orations, though under
strict charge not to lay aside the protecting
paper. A brave young girl ascended the platform
with her oration in her hand, placed it behind
her, and, to the astonishment of the faculty and
the delight of her hearers, delivered it unaided
by man or paper. This was a step in the
education of woman whose ultimate results have
not yet been reached.
Buckle says the boasted civilizations of
antiquity were eminently one-sided, and that
they fell because society did not advance in all
its parts, but sacrificed some of its
constituents in order to secure the progress of
others.
Through the past, this has been pre-eminently
the case in regard to woman. Education, except
in accomplishments, has been for her ignored.
She has been called the ornament of life, and
her advantages have been of an ornamental
character. She has not been treated as a
component part of humanity, but as a being
having a life outside of her own interests, and
not until she herself arose and demanded the
enjoyment of all opportunities, was the plan of
her education changed. The fact of such demand
on the part women is in itself an evidence of
advanced civilization.
Robert Spencer says, among all uncultivated
people the idea of ornament precedes that of
use, and that this holds good in regard to the
mind as well as the body, and that the knowledge
which conduces to well-being has been postponed
to that which brings applause.
While men have failed to see woman's needs in
respect to education, she has seen them herself,
and step by step has claimed opportunities,
until to-day the highest universities are
opening their doors for her admission. Within
the past year, Michigan University has admitted
women, and at the present time, a period of only
about seven months, there are seventeen women
students in its medical department alone,
besides those entered in its literary and legal
departments.
In Iowa, the admission of women to all branches
of its University, is rendered compulsory by her
State Constitution.
Washington University, of Missouri, has just now
opened its doors to women. Baker University, of
Kansas; Howard University, of Washington; St.
Lawrence University, of New York; and, I
believe, also universities in Illinois and
Indiana, admit women. So numerous are becoming
the colleges and universities which admit women
to equal educational advantages with men, or
which have recently been founded for women
alone, that I shall not attempt to give them
more than a passing glance. Most States can
boast those of greater or less reputation, and
each year—almost each month—adds to their
number. One of the latest is the Regent's
University, of California; and at our own
Cornell University, a woman recently passed a
successful examination. No State University can,
in common equity, refuse to admit women, as the
grant of public lands for their endowment was
proportionate to the representation from each
State, and women are counted equally with men as
the basis of representation.
A good evidence of the change of thought in
regard to woman's education is found in school
advertisements. One, which recently caught my
eye, was of an old school, now in its
forty-third year, originally a boy's school. The
present year's advertisement reads thus:
"In accordance
with the request of several families who
wish their daughters to have education
similar to their sons, girls will be
admitted to all departments of the school."
Besides the schools, colleges and universities
opening to women, we find the change of public
sentiment has spread to Literary and Scientific
Associations. Both in 1869 and '70, women were
on the list of officers of the American Social
Science Association, and many women have been
received as members of Scientific Associations,
and by Academies of Arts and Science The New
York State Historical Society has, within the
year, admitted its first lady members, while the
Historical Society of Chicago has, also within
the year, conferred life-membership upon two
women, and the State of Michigan has honored
itself by appointing a woman State Librarian.
Libraries for women have been instituted, and
women have also formed themselves into Library
Associations, into Art Associations, and into
National Educational Associations. They have
also been elected Superintendents of Schools,
Principals of Normal and Grammar Schools,
members of Board of Education, and in Kansas,
Wisconsin and Michigan their votes have been
made legal on all school questions. They fill,
with distinguished honor, various College and
University chairs, and not they alone, but their
classes, give evidence of woman's capacity both
as teacher and learner. Miss Maria Mitchell, of
Vassar, one of our distinguished astronomers,
has recently graduated a class of seventeen
girls, after a three-year course, having carried
them as far as she could, and giving them credit
for abstruse inquiries and profound mathematical
knowledge.
Miss Mitchell herself has been connected with
our Coast Survey, and the preparation of our
Nautical Almanac. She has the title of Ph. D.,
and by Professor Agassi's nomination, has become
a member of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and also of the Academy
of Arts and Science.
In the widely extended educational system of
lectures, women and preeminent. They have been
called upon to give commencement orations, even
in colleges devoted to the education of boys
alone. Fourth of July platforms have welcomed
them, and in the Lyceum women are the brightest
stars, and each season adds to their number.
In medical education woman is making rapid
strides. Twenty years ago not a single Medical
College for women was in existence, and but one
or two women physicians who, by almost
superhuman efforts, had obtained admission to
lectures. Now, in the United States alone, there
are seven medical colleges wholly for women,
some of which were founded by women, and a few
others which admit women with men. The first
woman medical college was founded in
Philadelphia, in 1853. The Dean of that
institution, as well as the two in New York, is
a woman. So accustomed has the public become to
women in the medical capacity that woman's right
to a medical education is less discussed than
any other, and some four hundred graduated women
physicians are now in regular practice with
incomes all the way up to $15,000 a year.
Not only this, but women have received
appointments as city physicians, and as
physicians in Colleges, in Alms-houses and in
Lunatic Asylums. The prize offered by the
"Medical Gazette" last year was carried off by a
woman, and medical societies are receiving them
as members; and although in some localities this
meets with opposition, it requires no prophet's
eye to see the final result. The American
Institute of Homeopathy, at its annual meeting
in 1869, passed a resolution by a large majority
declaring that qualified physicians, men or
women, were eligible to membership.
Not only are women demanded as physicians in our
own country, but from India, where men are not
permitted to treat women, the cry comes up to us
for their help, and this field widens every day.
The next profession to welcome women was the
Theological; and although women ministers have
existed from the days of the Apostles to the
mother of Wesley, and from her until now, and
among the Quakers have always been recognized-a
distinguished minister among them now occupying
this platform-it is but of late that Theological
schools have admitted them; and the first
ordained woman minister in our own country only
dates back to 1853, when Antoinette Brown was
ordained and installed as pastor over a church
in the State of New York. Now, a number of
women, in various Christian bodies, hold
pastorates, one of whom, Rev. Olympia Brown, is
seated upon this platform. She performs all the
duties of a Christian minister to a church in
Bridgeport, Connecticut, over which she is
settled. Let me just whisper here that she has a
theological student under her instruction, that
she performs marriages, and the courts have
declared marriages by women ministers to be
legal, thus stamping the sanction of the law on
this profession, and that she has assisted at
ordination, both herself and Mrs. Hanaford
taking prominent part, even to the laying on of
hands.
In this city at the present time, women
delegates are attending a Unitarian convention,
and taking active part in its proceedings. Last
year twenty-two Unitarian societies sent women
delegates to its annual convention.
During the war women officiated as chaplains in
the army, and Congress, by especial Act,
provided for the payment of at least one such
minister.
In August, 1869, the First Presbyterian Church
of Philadelphia took the gospel step of
ordaining women as deacons, and five such were
duly authorized for the work. Now churches in
various parts of the country have accepted their
services, and it is the testimony of Henry Ward
Beecher that one Deaconess is worth about two
ordinary Deacons, which is either saying a good
deal for the women or very little for the men.
One of the great revivalists of the day is a
woman, a member of the Methodist body, who
baptizes her converts, and receives them on
probation in the regular ministerial way. More
than twenty women are now studying Theology in
the United States, and in minor Christian work
women fill a wide public space, nor is this
advance confined to one or two religious bodies.
The Universalists, Unitarians, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Christians, Methodists, are
not alone. The Episcopal Diocese of Kansas
within the year has placed two women on the
examining board of the Diocesan Seminary, and
the Jews permitting women to take part in the
service of the Synagogue.
I must not fail to mention that Young Women's
Christian Associations, and Women's Missionary
Associations have been formed. That the
Methodist Episcopal Church, instituted in 1869,
has already over one hundred and thirty
auxiliaries. Neither must I forget to mention
that the Methodist have stricken the word "obey"
out of their marriage service, a grand Christian
step, and have also permitted women's votes on
the question of lay delegation. The secretary of
the Ladies and Pastor's Union of that body, is a
lady, now traveling in the interests of the
Association in the West.
The Women's Centenary Meeting of the
Universalist Church was recently held in
Massachusetts, and addressed by several eloquent
women pastors, of whom that denomination has
nine or ten, and two women, are now on the Board
of Directors of the Universalist Association.
At the recent meeting of the Board of Foreign
Missions in New York, women addressed crowded
houses and awakened deep interest. In
Connecticut, a Women's Foreign Missionary
Society was recently formed.
In some localities the management of Sunday
Schools has almost fallen into women's hands, it
being believed that mothers and sisters best
know how to interest children. One of the most
noted teachers of model lessons for Sunday
School Conventions and Institutes is a Chicago
lady, who is also editor of one of the
departments of the National Sunday School
Teacher; and women in other parts of the country
are acquiring an extended reputation in the same
work.
Did I not wish to confine my remarks to our own
country; I should like to refer to the change of
religious views as regards women in India, and
also in Persia where a new religion has arisen
which gives women perfect equality.
Women have also entered the legal profession,
and various States are admitting them to the
bar. By an act of the Kansas Senate, in 1869,
women were admitted to practice law in that
State. Mrs. Mansfield, of Iowa, President of the
Woman's Suffrage Association of that State, has
been admitted to the bar. Missouri recently lost
by death her first woman lawyer, Miss Lemme
Barkaloo, a native of your neighboring city of
Brooklyn. Her death was noticed by members of
the St. Louis bar in resolutions, and the
customary tributes of respect shown upon the
decease of a member. These ceremonies were taken
part in by the best legal talent of that city.
In Indiana, I believe, a woman has also been
admitted to the bar; and in other States they
but wait the action of the courts to take their
place in the profession. One of these, Mrs.
Bradwell, of Illinois, edits a legal paper of
acknowledged ability and authority in the
profession. One hundred women are now engaged in
the study of law in the United States, and among
them is a colored lady in the legal department
of Howard University. It is but five or six
years since the first colored male lawyer was
admitted to practice in the Supreme Court, but
such is the pressure of woman's demand, and such
the advancement our reform is making, that a
woman of his race is now close upon his path.
Women legal students attending sessions of court
have already exerted a refining influence on the
speech and habits of masculine lawyers, and are
destined to exert a marked effect on the
legislation of the world.
The advanced opportunities of work for women may
be mentioned by some other person, but a few of
those which are somewhat dependent upon certain
educational institutions, legitimately fall to
my mention. First among these are Schools of
Design for women; that of Philadelphia, the
oldest, founded by a woman, and that of New York
also founded by a woman, but afterward
incorporated into the Copper Institute School of
Design. New England also possesses a School of
Design for women, founded later than the others.
Anatomical instruction also forms part of the
course in these schools.
Schools of Telegraphy for women also exist; the
Western Union Telegraph Company, employing some
forty girls in this city as an especial corps of
Telegraphers, to whom instruction is given by
competent women teachers. The Cooper Institute
Free School of Telegraphy for women was
incorporated under the laws of the State of New
York and is under the management of an
accomplished woman principal.
Industrial Schools, Agricultural and
Horticultural Schools, where these latter
pursuits are scientifically taught, have also
been opened for women, and some women are now
largely and successfully engaged in these
employments; one lady, having extensive grounds,
has erected, at an expense of $10,000, large
horticultural houses for the propagation of
grapes.
Industrial schools, no less than the purely
literary ones, attest the refined advance made
in women's education within the last twenty
years.
Were I to include other countries in my report I
should trench too long upon the time of the
Convention, but I can assure you the good work
goes bravely on across the seas, and heathen as
well as Christian countries are awakening to a
sense of the injustice so long done our sex.
Thus far we have slightly traced the progress of
woman's education within the past two decades,
but there is no education as valuable as that of
practical experience, and women further demand
opportunity to use the educational advantages
which lie in self-government. It is not our
common schools, our colleges, nor our
universities which have educated the men of this
country. It is the ballot; it is a practical
interest in the laws which govern them; it is
the thought awakened by the responsibility of
self-government.
The end of existence is growth; neither men nor
women were created to bend to the accidents of
society. The very fact of existence brings
obligations with it, and must ultimately ensure
the widest opportunities to each individual. If
for no other reason than the cultivation of her
powers, woman demands to share in the government
of the country. She, equally with man, has an
inherent right to all opportunity for the full
development of her intellect. The education of
the schools is but preparatory to the practical
education which contact with the world brings.
Statesmanship, with its broad humanitarian
foundation, is peculiarly her right, and as the
advance step in woman's education, fitly
crowning the progress of the last twenty years,
we demand for her the ballot; "the ballot, the
nation's college," wide-spread in its benefits,
and belonging of right to all citizens of the
republic.
Twenty years ago woman's recognized sphere of
work-the only occupation in which custom deemed
it fit she should seek a livelihood-were house
work, sewing and teaching. Three years ago the
statistics of the New York City Working Woman's
Protective Union named forty-three employments
other than house-work, in which the women of
that city alone were engaged. So wonderful has
been the change in public sentiment within the
last two decades in regard to men's sphere of
work that we find much of the sewing of the
world has fallen into men's hands. Not only has
the sewing machine given occasion for men to
enter this branch of old feminine work, but
another masculine employment has grown up in the
manufacture of models by which to cut women's
clothing; and Worth, as chief dressmaker of the
civilized world, stands in women's old work by
the side of Blot, whose lessons in that chief
housework duty, cookery, are still fresh in our
minds.
No less great has been the change in the world's
preconceived ideas of women's sphere of work, as
shown by employments in which women now freely
engage.
Not only are women entering Horticulture and
Floriculture, as I have previously shown, but in
direct farm work are they taking share, and
proving themselves to be the most admirable
cultivators of the soil.
Not only in our own country have we many
instances of woman's successful management of
farms, but from Europe we have like accounts.
The Royal Agricultural Society offered last year
a hundred-guinea prize for the best managed farm
in the central districts of England. Owing to
the fact that farms there are mostly worked by
tenants whose rents are equal the first cost of
a farm in this country, it requires excellent
management to bring about a paying result.
Twenty-one farms, however, competed for the
above prize, and one, managed by a woman, took
it. The judges declared her farm to be an
exceedingly good example of a well managed one,
and ahead of all the others in point of
productiveness, suitability of live stock, and
general cultivation with a view to profit.
Nor is the superiorly managed farm a small one,
it contains nearly nine hundred acres, and
annually winters one thousand sheep and seventy
head of cattle.
Quite a proportion of the farmers of England are
women, and in our own country is a growing
inclination among women for farm work. The
Chicago Evening Post reports twenty thousand
women as having worked in the field during
harvest last year, in the State of Wisconsin
alone. The New York Farmers Club pays heed to
these signs of the times, and not long ago
interested itself to procure land near the city
for a woman who wished to enter into the
cultivation of small fruits. The question of
work today being not so much who does it as how
it is done. Not only in agriculture direct, but
in occupations bearing upon it, are women to be
found. The Cattle Market Reports of New York
city are daily made out for certain papers, by a
lady of unquestioned ability for the work, whose
opinion the Farmers Club quotes, and stock
dealers accept as recognized authority in all
matters connected with cattle or horses.
A woman of Iowa stands at the head of the Bee
interested in the United States. She edits the
Bee column in several papers; at Bee conventions
her opinion is eagerly sought on all questions
which come up; and such is her superior judgment
upon Bee culture that it has received
recognition from the Government itself. One of
her essays upon this subject was adopted by the
Department of Agriculture and issued in its
report of 1865, she receiving for it the
handsome sum of three hundred dollars.
In the manufactures of the country, women are a
large and rapidly increasing class. The census
of 1860 reported their numbers as 285,000 and no
enumeration was made of those employed in
manufactures whose yearly product was less than
five hundred dollars.
We also find women gaining their livelihood as
stenographers, engravers, printers,
telegraphers, photographers, cabinet-makes,
black-smiths, engineers, doctors, druggists,
dentists, oculists, merchants, clerks,
book-keepers, pay-masters, barbers, real estate
agents, insurance agents, market-women,
hotel-keepers, captains of boats, leaders in
orchestras, members of bands, lumber dealers,
contractors distillers, managers of theatres,
minstrels, and other amusements.
In occupations requiring the close management of
money, we find them as bankers, brokers, and
cashier, and since laws giving women the control
of their own property have been adopted by some
States, a vast amount of real estate has come
into their possession. A newspaper, devoted to
the investigation of facts bearing upon the
ownership of land, refers with surprise to the
immense number of women who buy and sell land,
loan money on mortgages, and in other ways deal
in such securities.
As exhibiting woman's business qualities, I may
be permitted to say that the Women's
Co-operative Association of California declared
a dividend of 30 per cent profits upon its
capital, within a few months after its
formation.
In art-industry, women are fast acquiring an
assured place. Seven of the American sculptors
in Rome-one third of the whole number-are women.
One of these ladies received $10,000 in gold for
her statue of Benton; another was commissioned
by congress two years ago for a statue of
Lincoln, and the work already awaits the
judgment of posterity; while a third is doubly
worthy of remembrances, as her genius broke the
bonds of race as well as sex.
In painting, Rosa Bonheur stands in the first
rank, and at the Paris Exposition of the
Industry of all Nations, the painting which drew
all eyes, and received the chief prize, was a
woman's work.
Literature is fast becoming a recognized means
of livelihood, and although twenty years ago it
was a common remark that women made their way
into it by the compilation of cookery books; now
women step at once into the most responsible
posts, and as publishers, editors reporters and
correspondents, exert a marked influence upon
the thought of the day.
The lately issued Index of Harper's Magazine
says, "the great number of female writers is
worthy of note, and that of writers whose
articles are deemed of such special value as to
receive exceptional prices, there are more women
than men."
In England, a woman holds to-day the foremost
place in literature; in France it is a woman's
writings which are the most eagerly sought, and
which are exerting the most marked influence on
the social wrongs of the age. The book which in
our own country did so much to bring about a
social and moral revolution, and which has been
read on every continent of the globe, was also
from a woman's pen.
Government has recognized woman's worth as a
worker by placing her in various departments at
Washington, and her service are now rendered in
the general Post Office Department, the Treasury
Department, and the Department of the Interior,
and we have the testimony of the highest
officials as to her capability and honest in
these employments.
As teachers of a Nautical School, two women of
New York, during the war, prepared over two
thousand mates and captains for the rigid
Government examination they were then obliged to
undergo.
Women are also engaged in work belonging
especially to a political sphere. Not only in
Wyoming, where a woman justice has tried over
forty cases, in all of which her judgment
stands, but in States where she is a non-voter
she has been appointed to paying positions, and
in Maine has also officiated as Justice of the
Peace. In Montana she acts as Sheriff, in Iowa
as Constable, in Kansas and Missouri as
Engrossing Clerk, and Enrolling Clerk in the
Legislature of those States; and in others as
Notary Public, Town Clerks, Revenue Officers,
Inspector and Commissioner of Schools. Post
Offices innumerable are also under her charge;
the scantily populated State of Texas even,
boasting of forty-five, while some of the
largest and most important offices in the Union
are indebted to women for many improvements in
their management.
More than this, a woman's branch of a National
Police Agency has been in existence of fifteen
years, which has not only manifested its
efficacy, in the discovery of stolen property,
but once, at least, within the last few years,
in a way which had its bearing upon our
existence as a nation.
At the breaking out of the war, this agency was
transferred to Washington, and the woman at its
head was placed in charge of the women's branch
of the Secret War Service.
Before Lincoln took his seat as President,
whispers were rife throughout the country of a
plan to assassinate him while on his way to
Washington. Such a plan did exist, and its
spirits were some of the most daring of the
rebellion. Baltimore, from the unusual
facilities a transit through that city gave, was
the place chosen for its execution; but quietly
and silently a woman detective laid her
counteracting plan, managing all its details so
successfully, that Lincoln passed unrecognized
through the city, and reached Washington in
safety.
The world is woman's, and in it, she, too, must
do what her hands find to be done.
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