TEN YEARS:
AN APPENDIX.
"To go on working, I consider the only thing to do; and, when friends urge this after every fresh effort, their doing so in itself contains a kind of verdict."—Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
THERE are some items of interest, that have come under my observation, for the first time, during the last few years, which I have not found it possible to add to the preceding lectures without destroying their symmetry. I therefore offer them in an Appendix. They are not placed here because they are unimportant, but simply that the later progress of public opinion may be set forth by itself.
For the last five years, the women of the United States have held few public discussions. They have done wisely. Circumstances have proved their friend. Nothing ever had done, nothing ever will do again, so great a service to woman, in so short a time, as this dreadful war, out of which we are so slowly emerging. Respect for woman came only with the absolute need of her; and so many women of distinguished ability made themselves of service to the government, that we had no single woman to honor as England had honored Florence Nightingale. With us, her name was legion. But with the prospect of peace comes the old duty of agitation; and we find ourselves again summoned to our work, and again anxiously awaiting its results,—anxiously, for the public work of women is an object which still attracts the gaze of the curious; and the smallest indiscretion on the part of a single woman has a retrograde effect, which very few seem able to measure.
Our reform is unlike all others; for it must begin in the family, at the very heart of society. If it be not kindly, temperately, and thoughtfully conducted, men everywhere will be able to justify their remonstrances. Let us rather justify ourselves. My last report to any convention was made to those called in Boston in 1859 and 1860. Between that time and 1863, I printed five volumes, which are nothing but reports upon the various interests significant to our cause. During the last four years, I have watched the development of American industry in its relation to women, and have, through the newspapers, aroused public feeling in their behalf. My labor is naturally classed under the three heads of Education, Labor, and Law. A proper education must prepare woman for labor, skilled or manual: and the experience of a laborer should introduce her to citizenship; for it provides her with rights to protect, privileges to secure, and property to be taxed. If she be a laborer, she must have an interest in the laws which control labor.
In considering our position in these three respects, it is impossible to offer a digest of all that has occurred during the last six years. What I have to say will refer chiefly to the events of the last two.
EDUCATION.
The most important educational movement of the last two years has been the formation of an American Association for the Promotion of Social Science, with four departments, and two women on its Board of Directors. Subsequently, the Boston Association was organized, with seven departments, and seven women on its Board of Directors; one woman being assigned to each department, including that of law. Any woman in the United States can become a member of the American association. If the opportunities it offers are not seized, it will be the fault of women themselves.
During the past winter, the Lowell Institute in Boston, in connection with the government of the Massachusetts Technological Institute, took a step which deserves public mention. They advertised classes for both sexes, under the most eligible professors, for instruction in French, mathematics, and natural science. As the training was to be thorough, the number of pupils was limited, and the women who applied would have filled the seats many times over. These classes have been wholly free, and have added to the obligation which the free Art School for women had already conferred.
On the 25th of June, 1865, the Ripley College, at Poultney, Vt., celebrated its Commencement. Seventeen young ladies were graduated. Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the literary address, and two days were devoted to the examination of incoming pupils. Feeling very little satisfaction in the success of colleges intended for the separate sexes, I take more pleasure in speaking of the Baker University, in Kansas, which was chartered by the Legislature of that State in 1857, as a university for both sexes. It has now been in active operation for seven years. A little more than a year ago, Miss Martha Baldwin, a graduate of the Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio, was appointed to the chair of Greek and Latin. She is but twenty-one years of age, but was elected by the government to make the address for the faculty at the opening of the Commencement exercises, and seems to have given entire satisfaction during the year.
Howard University was chartered at the last session of Congress, for the education of all classes of students, without distinction of sex, race, or color. It has purchased three acres of land in a pleasant part of Washington, and is now ready to receive about twenty-five students. Rev. Dr. Boynton, chaplain of the House of Representatives, is President of the Board of Trustees.
St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y., a university still very young, graduates both men and women, on precisely the same conditions. Civil engineering and political economy are the only optional studies with the women. It reports one theological student. Lombard University, Galesburg, Ill., does the same; but I know nothing of its standard of scholarship. It is only within the last year that I have been able to visit the most conspicuous colleges in this country in which women are taught with men. I consider the system of mixed classes an immense advantage, as it secures the standard of scholarship, prevents all foolish hazing, and places personal character and moral deportment in their right relations to classic study. It prevents also such instruction in the classics as must necessarily deprave the estimate of woman.
OBERLIN.
About all that I knew of Antioch, before I went West, was this,—that it was a college for the instruction of both sexes. I would like to have my readers know more of Antioch than I did, and to feel, without seeing it, the same intense interest that warms me now. They have heard of Oberlin, I suppose,—heard of it as a sort of fanatical way-station between the district school and Harvard University, where men, women, and "colored people" are all taught together. If I should show them what Oberlin has actually done, I think they may see more plainly what it is possible for Antioch to do: so I shall begin with some account of this college, which has "saved the North-west."
It is no idle boast: and, when I had stayed a week at Antioch, and was thoroughly roused to a sense of its immense importance; when I had seen how admirably fitted was Dr. Hosmer for the work given him to do,—I decided this in my own mind; namely, that if any one thing had stood in the way of Antioch hitherto, if any thing had prevented her complete work, it was the Eastern prejudice, the idea that men and women could not be educated together. And, as they had been trying this experiment at Oberlin for thirty-two years, I thought I would go there, and see how it had worked. If I had known then, what I know now, that out of the bosom of Oberlin twenty-two colleges had sprung, and that, of the twenty-two, ten are at this moment officered by her own graduates, I think I might have spared myself the trouble. Here are their names; for you will care more for Oberlin, if you get some glimpse of the work she has done, before I tell you the details of her story. I have put an asterisk against the names of the colleges whose presidents are graduates of Oberlin. All of those named receive pupils of both sexes.
Ohio.—Baldwin University, Berea, three colleges and one university, 326 pupils, 1846; Heidelberg College, Tiffin; Antioch College, Yellow Springs; Mount Union College, Alliance; Otterbein College, Westerville, a Gallery of Fine Arts forming, 360 students.
Michigan.—*Olivet College, 308 pupils; *Hillsdale College, 609 pupils; *Albion College; *Adrian College, with an endowment of $300,000.
Wisconsin.—Madison University; *Ripon College, 87 pupils.
Illinois.—Wheaton College, 219 pupils; Lombard University.
Indiana.—*Union Christian College, Mecom, 115 graduates.
Minnesota.—*Northfield College.
New York.—Genesee College, Lima; Elmira College.
Kentucky.—Berea College.
Kansas.—State University, Lawrence; Lincoln College, Topeka; Baker University.
Iowa.—Grenell College; *Tabor College, 192 pupils.
To these we may add Oberlin herself, with 1,145 pupils for the term which has just closed, and the prospect of a college in Missouri, which her president has recently been solicited to organize. Wherever I have obtained the catalogues of 1866, I have recorded the present number of students in these colleges. To those I have not marked, it will be fair to allow an average of 210 students. Those are not high schools, be it understood, but colleges in the proper sense. There is no doubt, that Oberlin, as the principal educational influence in Ohio, imposed upon Antioch and all other "Christian" colleges the necessity of educating both sexes.
In 1832, Oberlin was a little religious colony, born into a complete wilderness out of the Presbyterian Church. The plan of the colony involved a school, for which a tract of five hundred acres was given. The sale of the remainder of a tract of six thousand acres furnished a small fund with which to begin teaching. A year later, the students of Lane Seminary determined to hold an antislavery prayer meeting. The trustees forbade it. "You are right," said old Dr. Beecher, when the mutinous lads appealed to him,—"you are right; but we are too weak to hold Lane Seminary on antislavery principles. Go and make it possible for us." They went—Theodore Weld and Henry B. Stanton among them—to speak the truth at Oberlin. Arthur Tappan called from the Broadway Tabernacle the man who had been in the front of the great awakening which has swept through the land, instinct in every fibre of his being with the spirit of aggressive Christian work. "Go," he wrote to President Finney,—"go and teach the young men whom Lane refuses." One hundred thousand dollars was pledged by the merchants. Oberlin studied in summer that her pupils might teach all winter. So, promising to return to New York for the winter seasons, President Finney found his way, one muddy spring morning, to Oberlin. What he found there was two frame-houses in the midst of the forest, and half a dozen log-cabins. He found also his sixty students.
Very soon they had no end of difficulties to contend with. A jealous college, that had wanted Dr. Finney for its president, did its best to break down Oberlin. The crash of 1837 came; and Arthur Tappan, and the rest who had not paid out capital, ceased to pay interest. It was necessary to raise $50,000, and President Finney went to England and did it. Every man's hand was against them. The cross-roads were ornamented with pictures of fugitive slaves, pursued by lions and tigers, and running in the direction of Oberlin. But when Oberlin became a station on the underground railroad, and the slave-hunters actually came there after their chattels, the case altered. The neighborhood took part with the college, as if by miraculous conversion, and the offensive pictures disappeared. Then a thousand scholarships were instituted, at $100 each. Some were perpetual; some for six, eight, or ten years. On the interest of this investment the college now lives. The scholarships, as they fall in, increase its means. It costs $15,000 per annum, and $15 is the student's yearly fee. He rents his scholarship of a broker in the town. The college is managed with exquisite economy, and the most perfect attention to essential neatness.
For twenty years the college sent out into the West five hundred antislavery pupils yearly, to take the post of teachers, ministers, editors, and lawyers. They were heretics, so they were pushed farther and farther West. For the last fifteen years, it has sent out a thousand yearly. In all, twenty-five thousand men and women have gone out from her bosom, who have eaten and drank and recited at the same board with the colored man. Through all her pecuniary troubles, her original teachers have stayed by her, have given up all else for her sake; and President Finney has never been without a colored student at his table. There are two large churches in the town; for a population of four thousand persons has grown up to supply the wants of the college, which has the great advantage of still retaining the services of those who originally created it. Last year, Dr. Finney, now nearly eighty years old, resigned his position as president, but still remains at the head of the Theological School. I had always thought Oberlin bigoted to evangelical ways. I did not find it so. I was made as welcome to cross-question classes as if I had been an ordained graduate of their own. All theological teaching is done by discussion; and the fact that the colleges which have grown up under her graduates are of all persuasions, from the Methodist to the Christian, will show that doctrine is not urged. In all the recitation-rooms, questions were freely asked by both sexes; and this questioning is encouraged by all the professors but one, a young man from Yale. "Yes," said President Fairchild, himself a graduate of Oberlin, when I had pointed this out; "yes, that is what remains of New-England stiffness. Six months will convert him: we shall let him take his own time." I have never seen any thing like the enthusiasm this college inspires in those who labor for it. Would that I could see a man bred at Harvard with the same patient fire in his soul as President Finney! As I knelt by his side morning and evening, I felt that under his ministry the very stones must cry out. The twenty-five thousand men sent out from Oberlin did not go out as citizens merely, but as teachers. I was not surprised to find, that, a few months before the Proclamation of Emancipation, a letter had gone to Washington, from President Finney, entreating Mr. Lincoln to "recognize the hand of the Lord in this matter." In Oberlin, it is believed to have substantially modified the proclamation. Oberlin sent eight hundred and fifty men into the field during the rebellion. Professor Peck, our minister to Hayti, is the man who was once imprisoned by slave-hunters in Cleveland jail. An indignant mass-meeting was held in that city. Six hundred sabbath-school children went from Oberlin to greet their imprisoned superintendent, and the prosecuting attorney thought it best to give up the case. Professor Monroe, married to a daughter of President Finney, is our consul at Rio, and is well known as a controlling political power in Ohio. One of the faculty headed the first Oberlin regiment; a graduate of the Theological School, the second; Colonel Cooper, of the third, who went through with Sherman, is still doing antislavery work in Arkansas; and the present Governor of Ohio, Major-General Cox, also married to a daughter of Mr. Finney, has a record so brilliant, that it demands a volume in itself.
During the war, the college realized one unexpected advantage from the presence of women. The female pupils kept the college working! In the original constitution of Oberlin, it was stated that its main object was "to diffuse pure religion throughout the Mississippi Valley, and to elevate the female character." To both these objects it has been religiously faithful. In the Ladies' Library Room I saw a picture of Camp Dennison. It was drawn by one of the graduates; was sent from camp to college, with the inscription beneath, "From the boys at Camp Dennison to the girls of '61,—the dearest girls in all the world." It was not put out of sight, but proudly shown to me. I have never been in any educational institution where the interests of the pupils so evidently rule. The vacation comes in winter, that the pupils may pass it in teaching; but the professors do not then take a vacation. They open a winter school, where students who are behindhand may make up deficiencies. I do not mean that all the pupils go through the entire college course: many cannot afford it. They stay as long as they can, and go reluctantly away.
They follow the fashions at Oberlin: the Continental pronunciation took possession of the Greek and Latin class-rooms last year. They employ undergraduates to teach the preparatory students at thirty cents an hour. The common or town school has 830 pupils, 180 of whom are colored. In the college, the colored pupils are 5 to 100, and the female pupils 40 out of 50. There are scarcely any rules. The few that are printed are enforced as friendly advice. President Finney says he has often known a year to pass without an opportunity for a presidential admonition. The management of the girls seems to me admirable. The teachers feel no doubt of their method; therefore they show none. Once a fortnight the lady principal meets the ladies, and talks with them privately on all questions of womanly habits and manners. The splendid endowment of Vassar College could not give to Oberlin a woman better suited to this purpose than Mrs. Dascomb. Once a week there is a religious meeting.
The college has just now the brightest prospects. Its old buildings were far less convenient than those at Antioch; but at a late Commencement an appeal was made, and by a spasmodic response, like that which recently gave us $30,000 for Meadville, the graduates subscribed as much for a new "Ladies' Hall." The contracts were made before the war, the expenses managed with scrupulous prudence; and now a beautiful brick building, 121 feet by 121, is opened. It has a library, reading-room, and parlors; and a dining-hall, to which the male students are admitted, and where truly excellent board is given for three dollars a week. The kitchen would do anybody's heart good. On every floor is a wood and water room, where the wood and ashes go up and down on a dumb-waiter, where water is carried up in a well-protected pipe, and slops may be thrown into a sink. Two excellent new buildings for recitations will be ready for the spring term. Some idea of the admirable tact and prudence which have prevailed at Oberlin may be gleaned from the following anecdote: Thirty-three years passed before a colored teacher was employed in the Preparatory School. "We knew," said President Fairchild, "that we must not try the experiment till it was sure to be a magnificent success." In 1865, Oberlin had in Miss Fanny Jackson a pupil worthy of the experiment. She had been a slave in the District of Columbia, and so puny, that, at an early age, she was sold to her own aunt, a freedwoman, for a trivial sum. She was sent here, and with fear and trembling now yielded to the wish of the president. That no one might be compelled to enter her class, two advanced classes in English grammar were organized, one under the present wife of Dr. Finney. On the first day, an over-grown lad came to the president, and said, "My father would not like it very well if he knew I was taught by a woman,—but a woman and a negro!" "Stay in the class three days to please me," said the president; and, at the end of that time, the boy refused to be removed. After a day's absence from illness, Miss Jackson was received with cheers; and, when her class had to be subdivided, the heart-burnings of those who had to leave it were pitiable. She is now teaching in the Colored High School in Philadelphia, where she will remain till she has paid the price of her freedom. The brilliancy of her classical teaching is considered very remarkable in Philadelphia.
It remains only to consider the double system. Everybody at Oberlin was loud in its praise; no one would teach now in any other sort of college. The presence of women secured discipline. There was no chance for hazing or any other antiquated folly. Pupils and teachers who had gone from Oberlin to Vassar both missed the pleasant excitement of the old life.
"But," said President Finney, when I turned from all the rest to him, "it must not be forgotten that we have had great advantages. We came here for a religious reason; our pupils came for years. It is only lately that they have been sent. I expect that some difficulties may arise, but none worse than would arise in a neighborhood-school. It is God's way to rear us." The old man showed me, with great emotion, a confession, signed by three young girls, and read at college prayers in 1837. They had been walking, and met one of the students with an improvised sledge; without thinking, they jumped on and took a drive. There were no rules against it; but, when they came home, they remembered how much depended on their prudence as members of an antislavery institution, and wrote the confession of their own accord. One of these lovely women is now the wife of President Fairchild.
I record with pride the history of Oberlin, the first college which undertook to teach resident pupils of both sexes. I feel that it has been a great success. I am ashamed of the half-denominational prejudice which kept me from taking a warmer interest in it, in advance; and I greet its new life under President Fairchild, a graduate of the institution, with the warmest feelings of hope and admiration.
It has just received $25,000 from the executors of the estate of the Rev. Charles Avery, of Pittsburg, who left $150,000 in trust, to be devoted, according to the best judgment of the directors, to the "education and elevation of the colored people in the United States and Canadas." The conditions are, that the college shall never make any discrimination, on account of color, against colored students, and that it shall furnish free tuition to fifty of its most needy colored students who may apply for it; preference being given to twenty to be nominated by the American Missionary Association.
ANTIOCH.
The road to Antioch is hard to find: indeed, it would seem as if the trustees had specially secluded it,—made interest, perhaps, with the railroads to prevent the cars from stopping there, for the special protection of the young people! From Cincinnati, we wind along the lovely banks of the little Miami, through nurseries and hillside terraces, through groves of oak and sycamore, and birch-trees stretching out white, bewildered arms. Pigs are quietly grazing in the woods, as if it were their nature to "chew the cud;" there are groups of tiny powder-houses, made small, the people say, because they are "expected to blow up once a fortnight"! Heavy loads of corn and hay wind along the terraced roads; a gay-looking negro on horseback takes off his hat; two children are pulling a boat across the Miami; there are no houses along the shore, only safe-looking spits of sand jut out here and there; and, at last, having come the ten miles from Xenia in a private carriage, we roll on to Antioch Plain. I had heard that the college was on high land; so I was a little disappointed to find it on a table among the hills, which did not command any marvellous extent of country. As for the college, it has evidently made its toilet for posterity. I could not get a glimpse of its two fine towers and broad front, till I wandered down to the railroad track, and looked at it from the vicinity of a lime-kiln and a sorghum-mill. For some unknown reason, it turned its back on the village in the beginning, and pranks its beauty in full sight of that cursive population which travels by steam.
Yellow Springs is a pretty little place to live in,—an economical one, certainly, for there isn't a thing in it to buy; and, when we have looked at two or three little churches and Judge Mills's pretty park, we are quite content to go through the grounds of the Yellow Springs House, look down on the glen from the quaint, long, low southern piazza of the Neff House, and finally get home as we may, by log-bridges, and banks of moss, over which the walking-fern is striding. Ten miles of hedge, made of the Osage orange, surround the Neff Place, which a wealthy family in Cincinnati refuse to sell; but which is destined, in the far future, for a large hotel. In the little glen,—where a beautiful cascade falls, and tortuous rapids sputter and foam, and tiny fish dart up and down, and great graceful trees bend to shelter us,—we may find all the beauty of the White-Mountain passes. Two or three miles off, there are persimmons in the woods, and fossils under the soil; and, on Saturdays, pleasant parties go with Mr. Orton or Professor Clarke to find them. The "Yellow Spring," which gives the town its name, is of course largely impregnated with iron. It is imprisoned in a stone tank, which it colors brown; and it changes a rusty iron ladle to gold. It is a tonic; and, not far from the spot where it bubbles up, there is a pretty summer-house, where those who come to drink may sit and rest. As we walked toward it, a little brown rabbit skipped across the grass. From every high point in the glen, there are lovely views of the college and town.
Dr. Hosmer has just introduced a change into the Sunday-morning service at the chapel. He has taken the service-book of James Freeman Clarke, and, between reading and chanting, devised a matin service of great beauty. No musical professors could have done greater credit to the first performance than the students themselves. It made the bare, whitewashed walls of the chapel seem as sacred as a grand cathedral.
I did not look into the books at Antioch. Those at Oberlin I thoroughly investigated; and the strict economy the figures showed would distinguish honorably any institution in any land. But, as far as I can judge from oral testimony, the fees of the students and the interest of the endowment fund here amount to $13,000, and do not quite provide for the annual expenses. There is, therefore, no fund for repairs, none for scientific instruments, none for the library; and, while the president and professors feel that a further endowment will sometime be needed,—nay, is needed now,—yet they also feel that they must show what work Antioch can do, before they ask further sympathy. Still, there are some few things which the wise prudence of the trustees, the thoughtfulness of loving friends, the surplus of full purses, can, in a quiet way, provide.
The pupils at Antioch make no complaint of their commons this year; yet it is undeniable that they should be better than they are. The commons are provided at Oberlin and Antioch in the same way; that is, by a family entirely disconnected with the college. At Oberlin, the table presents an attractive appearance. It would be grateful to any hungry person, and board is furnished at $3 a week. At Antioch, a pleasant and friendly woman has charge of things; but no great variety seems to be offered, and the board is $3.50 per week. Both these prices seem to me, after investigating Western markets, starvation prices; but it is evident, that, on this point, we have something to learn from Oberlin. If the president and faculty of Antioch should visit Oberlin, where they would be most kindly received, they would see, perhaps, that the difficulty lies in the cooking-apparatus. Oberlin offers a first-rate kitchen; Antioch, one very far behind what most of the pupils would find at home. I suppose no one will deny, that, when the average social standing of the students in these Western colleges is considered, it is desirable that they should find at the college-table a standard of cooking and serving which is a little in advance of that to which they have been used. The food may be plain and without variety, but it should be thoroughly nice and inviting of its kind. The ladies of any one of our city churches might undertake to furnish the kitchen at Antioch, and they could not have a better model than the kitchen at Oberlin. To advance the standard over previous experience, is, I think, a necessary part of education here.
Still farther, cisterns should be built in the upper stories of the dormitories, into which the waste-water may run from the roofs. Pipes leading downward from this should supply one sink on each story, and this sink should also carry away the waste-water from the rooms. A large "dumb waiter"—I use the word for want of a better—should be provided in each dormitory to carry up wood, and carry down ashes and dry dirt. I have already shown that this is done at Oberlin; and, if cisterns are not possible, then reservoirs and a forcing-pump should take their place.
There are but two dormitories,—one for men, and one for women; and when we consider, that, beside studying, the pupils have to help themselves by sawing wood and other manual labor, it will be acknowledged, that to bring their own wood and water up two or three flights of stairs is more than we can ask of them.
The library and scientific apparatus are very deficient for present needs. In the scientific department, some means of protecting the apparatus already obtained is greatly wanted. Microscopes are needed for scientific investigation. In the library, a translation of the "Mécanique Céleste," modern scientific books generally, Smith's "Bible Dictionary," and the leading works on English literature, are required. Trench, Müller, Taine, have not yet found their way to Yellow Springs.[47]
It seems to me, that, before Antioch, there now opens a great career. If her trustees and her faculty will but keep faith in her methods, surely we are bound to help them to the utmost. The personal friends of Dr. Hosmer also, who realize the nobility of that enthusiasm which made him willing to accept such a post while "looking towards sunset," ought, I think, to make the position as easy as possible, by anticipating these practical wants. Five hundred dollars would supply the most necessary books to the library.
But, if Oberlin does such noble work, what need of Antioch? Why should we strive to sustain an institution at such a continual cost, if one already established is competent to do its work? Let us get a glimpse of what Antioch can do, and then we shall be better able to answer these questions. In the first place, we are in possession of buildings worth now $180,000, and of twenty acres of land, worth $10,000. The land was a donation, in the beginning, from Judge Mills, the great man of the village, who perhaps fancied that a growing college would increase the value of his real estate; and for this property, worth now nearly $200,000, we gave $50,000. For its proper appropriation we are responsible; and I think we have work enough to do, though Oberlin has saved the North-west, and though her new halls should be crowded thrice over.
In the first place, Antioch is to be a missionary station. No one who has not travelled through the West can imagine the thirst of the people for spiritual food. I think those who know least about it are the Western ministers themselves. I always found them sceptical about it, when I spoke to them; and I could not very well say, what I was sometimes compelled to feel, "It is because you could never satisfy this want, that it does not show itself to you." To Dr. Hosmer, however, with his warm, genial soul, with a temper conciliatory and discreet, the people are willing to speak. Beside the daily college prayers, there are services in the chapel on Sunday at half-past eight in the morning, and at three in the afternoon. During the last year, the audiences at the Sunday preaching had dwindled to a score: since Dr. Hosmer's arrival, it averages about two hundred and fifty; and, of course, townspeople, who come to the chapel regularly, grow in sympathy with the college and its purposes. Dr. Hosmer has promised to supply the Christian pulpit in Yellow Springs for eight Sundays, which gives Mr. McConnell liberty to do missionary work for the same time. The little town of Troy has some difficulty in keeping a minister. Dr. Hosmer promises him four Sundays, that he may go away, and so add to his substance. He goes also himself to the Universalist church in Columbus; and at Cleveland, where about twenty Unitarian families are hoping sometime to have a church, he promises them an occasional service if they will pay the expenses of transit. Professor Hosmer, whose preaching is thoroughly appreciated in the neighborhood, has also preached in Marietta; and either he or his father stands ready to supply Mr. Mayo's pulpit when that gentleman undertakes the missionary work, which has already made him one of the most useful of the Western clergy.
Who are the people that have this college in charge? What sort of pupils are likely to benefit by the education we offer? If we know a little about them, perhaps it will kindle a warmer interest. Beside the two Hosmers whom we know, there is Dr. Craig, Professor Weston and his wife, Professor Clarke, and Mr. Orton, with four teachers under him in the preparatory department. Dr. Craig was the man whom Horace Mann thought it constituted an era in his life to know. For fifteen years he was the minister of the church at Blooming Grove, Orange County, N.Y., a church which has existed for more than a hundred years without a creed, and which is governed by seven deacons and seven deaconesses. Professor Weston and his wife divide the classical department between them, having both taken the degree of A.M. at Oberlin.
Professor Clarke is the son of the famous Methodist minister in Chicago. He was professor of mathematics in Michigan University, and went abroad for two years to fit himself more thoroughly for his work. The war called him home; he raised a company, was made major, and, being taken prisoner, was thrown into Libby. There, he says, one of our Boston boys saved his life by sharing his supplies with him. He was removed to Macon, and, while sharing all the horrible experience of the stockade, succeeded in digging a tunnel, through which he would have escaped; but some other prisoners doing the same thing, and the escape of one being sure to lead to the detection of all, he waited honorably for the second tunnel to be completed. Meanwhile he was removed to Charleston, and put under Gilmore's fire, where, at last, his exchange was effected. When Professor Clarke left Michigan University to come to Antioch, he made a sacrifice born of the true missionary spirit. May we share his spirit sufficiently to strengthen his hands in the new work! Mr. Orton is most admirably fitted to his department, and has an excellent corps of teachers under him. Among them is one, the daughter of a mechanic, that went from Worcester to assist in building the college, who got her own education at Antioch by alternate years of study and teaching, having to earn one year what she spent the next. A more exquisite model school than that connected with the college, I never saw.
Among the older pupils of Antioch is the Christian minister of Yellow Springs, the Mr. McConnell of whom I spoke, who may be called, if you prefer it, a brigadier-general. He was born humbly, in Ohio, had only the rudest schooling, was a Christian minister before he was twenty, and married before he was twenty-one. He was preaching in Troy when the first gun was fired at Sumter. He raised a company at once, and got a lieutenant's commission. In actual service, he was soon made a captain. He kept with General Grant throughout his Western campaign, and returned from Pittsburg Landing the colonel of his regiment; then re-enlisted for the war, went back to the front, kept with the Western army, and, at the close of the war, was mustered out a brigadier-general. He did signal service in many battles, but especially before Nashville, where his brigade, assisted by a negro brigade, broke Hood's centre by a very gallant charge. He went to Atlanta with Sherman, and could never weary of telling me how the Sanitary and Educational Commission followed the army with their fostering care, ever present, it seemed to him, like the blood which supplies with food the minutest nervous fibre of the human frame. When he returned, the people would have carried him into Congress; but he declined. Then they offered to make him a judge of probate, with a salary of $2,500 a year; but he told them he had chosen the pulpit for his field: and now, preaching in Yellow Springs, he comes into the college classes, and, hoping to take his degree, keeps faithfully all the college rules.
Still another pupil, now thirty years old, raised a company for the war. He was at the fall of Vicksburg, had not been at school since he was ten years old, but made $1,800 by buying and selling grain, and brought it here to carry him through college. When I cross-examined him in Greek history, I found he had read Grote! The teacher of the village school at Yellow Springs has had a more vexatious experience. He had finished his third year at Antioch, when he went into the army. He became an aid to three Western generals successively, and was with Grant when Lee surrendered. He saved $800 of his pay to carry him through his last college year, but had only been home a few days when a burglar stole it! He has taken the village school for $900 this year, studies hard; and the faculty have voted, that, when he can stand a certain examination, he shall take his degree.
It is for such students that Antioch is open. One-third of her present pupils are women. Pleasant levees are held once a fortnight at the president's house, where the two sexes mingle gracefully. The girls have a literary society, which they call the Crescent; the young men, two societies, the Star and the Adelphian. The Star and the Crescent have fitted up one room under the gambrel very tastefully. The Adelphians rival them. The folding-doors in the hall of the latter society open into a pretty alcove, where a good library is beginning. These two rooms are the only glimpse of tasteful, home-like comfort that one gets in any public room at Antioch. I attended the meetings of the three societies. Before the Crescents, I heard a graceful little essay on "A Rail-fence," from a girl of fifteen. From the Stars, I heard a discussion of Roman funerals. The Adelphians discussed the possibility of obeying an unrighteous law, very much as I have heard their elders do in Congress. Each society had a censor, who took notes of papers and discussions, and quietly criticised each performance when it ended. It was noticeable, that the performances of the women, making due allowance for age and opportunity, were far more graceful and able than those of the men, and a most valuable help to the latter. Coming home one night from the Adelphians, I found at Dr. Hosmer's a Southern refugee, who is educating her children at Antioch.
Sometime before the war, Mrs. Palmer and her husband went to East Tennessee from New York, carrying with them $50,000. I think they must have opened a store; for she spoke of having on hand a valuable stock of millinery and medicines. Being Northerners, they were constantly threatened, and at last consented to barricade their house. Three times the rebels stole their horse, a colt only two years old; and three times Mrs. Palmer's perseverance got it back. At last they surrounded the house at night, firing on the peaceable inmates; and Mr. Palmer, attempting to escape over the roof, got three bullets in his arm. The next day the party came back, robbed the house, and burned up the stores. The medicine was a great loss: there was no more within reach for rebel or loyalist. Mrs. Palmer succeeded in hiding her meat and meal. For eight days she and her family hid in the rocks, only venturing back to the house at night to cook and eat a little food. One night, when the poor wife was so employed, her feverish, half-delirious husband followed her, and, in some way, attracted the attention of the enemy. A terrible battle followed, and Mr. Palmer lay on the kitchen floor with eight wounds in his body. When the malice of the rebels was spent, Mrs. Palmer went out with her children, and called the cattle. By keeping them between her and the house, she succeeded in getting her husband into the woods. A Union man finally received and fed him; but it was many days before his wounds could be dressed. She then escaped with her children and the colt, on which they rode by turns. She had picked up some of the ends of her burnt millinery, which she used to barter for food as they went along. She came at last to an old schoolhouse, where she lay down; and here she nursed her children through the measles. Here, after many weeks, her husband came to see her, but was taken prisoner as he crept away, and was sent to Libby. She saw many terrible things while she lingered here: one of her neighbors had his bowels cut out while he was still alive! When she started afresh, she had seven hundred miles to travel before she reached Bardstown. One of her five children ultimately died of the fatigue and hunger.
"How did you get food?" I asked.
"I prayed for it," she answered; "and I always felt sure of enough for the hour."
"Who would shelter you?" I continued.
"I never lay out but one night," she answered. "I used to tell them, wherever I went, that the Union soldiers must win in the end; that I was going to them, and would report whoever used me ill. So they would let me lie on the kitchen floor." At Bardstown, Morgan's men destroyed her last thing; and then a United-States sutler found her, and carried her to Louisville.
The children of many such women will hereafter seek Antioch. Let them find there a generous provision.
VASSAR COLLEGE.
Mr. Vassar's magnificent donation is drawing interest at last; and, though I do not feel as much confidence in any institution founded for women alone as I do in mixed colleges, we ought all to be grateful for the advanced standard lifted at Poughkeepsie.
Malt has always been a beneficent agent in the civilization of mankind. Ever since Mr. Thrale looked kindly on old Sam Johnson, brewers have seemed to have a generous pride in conquering human selfishness, and leaving something better than a family of children to interest posterity. Mr. John Guy, of Liverpool, a wealthy brewer without children, founded there the great "Guy's Hospital." He was the great-uncle of Matthew Vassar, also a great brewer in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. By and by, Matthew Vassar found his property close upon a million; and, as he had no children, he began to think what he should do with it. He had a good many poor relations, and those who were industrious and deserving he did not forget. One of them, a young niece, supported herself by school-teaching. He built her a schoolhouse, and did what he thought right to ease her way. At last, sinking in a decline, she came home to die. As she lay on the sofa, day after day, she watched him walking back and forth, and talking over his plans. Now and then she would say gently, "Uncle Matthew, do something for women." After she was gone, Matthew Vassar went to see Guy's Hospital. His connections advised him not to give away his money. His Baptist friends in Edinburgh and Liverpool laughed at the idea of a college for women, which had already entered his mind. He came home, and tried to plan a hospital; he got up, and went to bed with the idea uppermost; but all the time he seemed to hear the voice of his niece, "Do something for women, Uncle Matthew." Mr. Vassar has two houses: one, in the heart of Poughkeepsie, which is opposite the brewery, and, with a long range of comfortable outbuildings, looks as steadfast and English as ever Mr. Thrale's own house could do; the other, a modest little country box, set on a hill among extensive grounds, and commanding, from various points, lovely views of the town and river. The peculiarity of this place is, that it is ornamented with all manner of punchinellos cut in dull gray limestone, and leering or grinning from every corner of the park. I did not find out who was responsible for this grim joke. In 1860, Mr. Vassar, with the humility and common sense which belong to his character, obtained a charter, and called together thirty trustees. To them he transferred more than half his actual property. When the opening of the war occasioned the failure of the contractors, he did not draw back, but gladly gave the additional $150,000 which the increased expense demanded.
The building is planned after the palace of the Tuilleries, having at each end the chateau roof and mansard windows. It is 500 feet long, and 170 deep. The only drawback to its architectural effect is the entrance, which should have been a magnificent double stairway, but is, for the present, only an ordinary private door. This building stands in the midst of two hundred acres of lovely sloping and swelling land. To the right, and quite visible at the porter's lodge, is the gymnasium and hippodrome under one roof; to the left, the graceful observatory, which is also the home of Miss Mitchell and her father.
In the two wings of the building with chateau roofs are five private dwellings, rented for a moderate sum to the resident professors. In the centre, just behind the entrance, are the dining-hall, the chapel, the art-gallery, and the library; also the large drawing-rooms, where pupils and teachers receive their friends, and the parlor and office of president and principal. Connecting this centre with each wing, on four floors, run long corridors with sunshine and bright windows on one side, and clusters of students' rooms and recitation-rooms on the other. The rooms are in pretty groups of four. Three bedrooms open into one study, the latter made pleasant and home-like by the united treasures of the occupants. The music-rooms are "deadened," so that the noise hardly strays beyond the walls; and the cabinet, where the students in natural history prepare specimens, is full of cases to preserve the work. The best that I can say of the building will hardly do justice to the intention of the founder, which no one can comprehend who has seen only such institutions as Harvard and Yale. There is no occasion here to wish for any thing which may perhaps come when the college is rich enough. Mr. Vassar's intention was and is to have the endowment perfect. The building is fire-proof, every partition wall being of solid brick. There are four pairs of fire-walls, into which iron doors run on rollers; and between these are fire-proof stairways, always safe, even if the wood work should catch fire. There is the physiological cabinet, with every thing for the use of the professor, including various manikins and wax preparations. The library, chiefly of books of reference, holds three thousand volumes, to be increased at the rate of five hundred per annum, and is also used as a reading-room, where newspapers and reviews may always be found. The art-gallery, purchased at an extra cost of $20,000, is such as no college in the country possesses. It consists of good copies in oil, fine water-colors, including six real Turners, large portfolios of original sketches, and a perfect library of works on art and engravings,—in all, about a thousand volumes. Besides the five hundred pictures, this gallery contains a few busts and casts; among them, Palmer's Sappho in marble, an ancient wrought brazen shield, and specimens of ancient stained glass. The chapel seats seven hundred persons, and might hold a thousand. Over the altar is a beautiful copy of the Dresden Madonna, by Miss Church, of New York. There is also a fine organ.
The music-rooms accommodate a "conservatory" on the Charles Auchester plan, as well as separate pupils. Thirty-two pianos are in use.
The building on the outside is laid with brick in black cement, and has dark stone trimmings, which prevent its glaring on the eye like a new brick building. To the right is the riding-school, one hundred feet by sixty, where thirty horses are kept; and, in the same building, a gymnastic hall, thirty feet by seventy.
The observatory, eighty feet long and fifty high, rests on the rock, as well as the great pier. It contains a telescope made by Fitz, whose focal length is seventeen feet, and its object-glass is twelve and a half inches. There is also a smaller instrument, for the constant use of pupils, and, on the roof, a good comet-seeker. There is a beautiful transit circle, made by James, of Philadelphia, which Miss Mitchell considers invaluable of its kind; and a very perfect sidereal clock and chronograph, from the Bonds of Boston.
Between the observatory and the riding-school, four hundred feet from the main building, is the gas and boiler building, from which the college is lighted and warmed. Beside these, twenty miles of water-pipe travel up and down the corridors to supply culinary and domestic needs. Let us follow them into the kitchen, and we shall find there every possible convenience of a good hotel, to the steam-filled table on which the food is carved.
And now, the building once ready for its inmates, was Mr. Vassar rewarded for the sacrifice he had made? for all the time and thought bestowed on the outfit? No one had supposed that the school would be full when it opened in September, 1865; but there were 353 pupils on hand the first day, and the work of organizing was no trifle. When I looked at the teachers and principals in this institution, many of whom I had known before visiting it, it seemed to me that each one had been providentially fitting for the very work Mr. Vassar now offered. Of the thirty persons employed, I saw no one that I should have desired to change. Maria Mitchell, Hannah Lyman, and the admirable resident physician, Alida Avery, are now too well known to need any praise of mine. These persons are all of the faculty; and their names indicate how liberal all the decisions of the faculty must be. I visited the institution at the beginning of the second year, in October, 1866. It had already outrun its bounds. There was talk of still another dormitory. Four hundred pupils, well born, well bred, in good health, with more than ordinary education (for the tests are severe), and with ample means, had come to meet those teachers. They had come, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, at the very time when society holds out every attraction. Vassar is no charity school. Its necessary fees amount to four hundred dollars; and a girl should have six hundred to feel happy and at ease. It paid every bill the first year, but had nothing left for repairs and additions. To create a fund for this purpose, the fees have been increased to the above-named sum. When the first rush of pupils occurred, Mr. Vassar was almost dismayed. "God sometimes gives great thoughts to very little men," he said, and trembled; but, when the year came to a close, he lifted his hands in serene gratitude. I arrived at night; and the procession filing past me to enter the handsome dining-hall, supported by light pillars, about which were circular stands for the urns, occupied seven minutes. When I saw more than four hundred young women seated in groups of twenty, saw them bow their handsome heads in silent grace,—a suggestion which came, I think, from Miss Mitchell's Quaker father,—I felt excited with happiness. After tea, I walked round and through the groups of tables; and the bright faces smiled back at me either consciousness or question. When they left the dining-hall, they went to the chapel, where Miss Lyman offers an evening prayer, and, no gentlemen being present, talks to the ladies in reference to all matters of decorum; a practice I hope to see followed at Antioch. After breakfast the next morning, I went to President Raymond's short matin service, and then walked over to the observatory. There I saw the graceful figures of the girls bending to the instrument, as they recorded the spots on the sun. I saw the daily diagrams in which they had recorded the position of these spots for the last year, and other diagrams of lunar eclipses. "Women make better observers than men," said old Mr. Mitchell. "They have more patience, more accuracy. I had been observing thirty years, when Maria took it up, and I thought, mebbe, 'twas only Maria; but it is just the same with these girls. They do better than I did." I don't wonder Miss Mitchell is proud of her seventeen mathematical astronomers. She is a tender daughter, as well as a capable "observer;" and she would not come to Vassar without her father. All the girls come to the white-haired old man with their joys and troubles; and I saw a letter from an old pupil to Miss Mitchell when I was there, which contained this audacious sentence, left to tell its own story: "Was it not good of God to put it into Mr. Vassar's heart to spend his whole fortune in making your father's last years perfectly happy?" In the art gallery I found, one morning, twenty-five pupils copying; and, in the musical conservatory, one hundred and seventy-five. The gymnasium was not quite ready for use; so I went down to see the girls rowing on the pretty lake. After school hours, the floral clubs were busy in the grounds. I cannot say any thing better of Professor Tenney's pupils, than that they work over their specimens as enthusiastically as boys. In chemical analysis, under Professor Farrar, the girls are greatly interested. The curriculum is such as we find adopted at all colleges, except that far more time is devoted to science than is usual at Yale or Harvard, and room is left for music. Riding, driving, rowing, &c., are extras, only allowed in the time allotted to out-door exercise. The resident physician, Dr. Avery, in whom the college is conscious that it possesses a great treasure, gives a regular course of physiological lectures.
Matthew Vassar was seventy-six years old on the 29th of April, and that day is a perpetual festival for the pupils. Could you see him meet the scholars in the grounds, you would think them all his children. I had interviews with the president, trustees, and the teachers; but was most attracted toward this noble old man. He told me that he meant to go on endowing the college until he died. "Then," he said, "I shall leave nothing for executors to quarrel about: money will be safe in brick and stone." He asked me to talk with him about a culinary and household college for the proper training of housewives, which he still wishes to erect. His last gift to the college was its magnificent cabinet of stones and fossils; one of the best, Professor Dana thinks, that he ever saw. Beside the beautiful specimens shown under glass, there are, in drawers beneath the glass cases, similar specimens which may be handled.
In furnishing Vassar College, no one has had to think what any thing would cost. When shall we have an institution for wealthy persons, of both sexes, with an outfit as splendid? It is a sight which Oberlin has earned the right to see.
LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, KANSAS.
But a still more interesting story is that connected with the establishment of the State University in Kansas. Its name will be seen on the list of colleges which owe their existence to Oberlin. This university is one of those whose character was determined by the excitement the success of Oberlin had aroused; but its existence was due to two ladies from Western New York. It will have been seen, by some details in the body of this work, that an attempt was made to secure for woman a share in the noble State endowment at "Ann Arbor," Michigan, but without success. I will tell a part of the story in the language of Miss Mary Chapin, then of Milwaukie, the lady who, with the assistance of her sister, carried the work out in Kansas.
"Some years ago," she says, "the Legislature of Michigan decided that girls might be admitted as pupils to the State University. The faculty of that institution consulted the 'wise men of the East' on the subject, and excluded women on the ground of expediency. If it were necessary to make it a mixed school, in order to admit them, perhaps they acted wisely. It is no more just and wise to give the charge of endowed schools for girls to men, than it would be to put Harvard and Yale into the hands of women. Girls need incentives to study, even more than facilities for it. The fact, that the real education of the boy begins where that of the woman ends, is not so depressing as the 'hard work and low wages' which await her as a teacher. In 1863, Kansas accepted the grant of land from Congress for the endowment of a State University. The citizens of Lawrence secured its location in that city, by the gift of forty acres for a site. The college was not organized; and it seemed the time and place to decide whether women should enter endowed schools on equal terms with men, as pupils and teachers. Many of the most influential men of Kansas thought it both just and expedient to give women an equal share of the benefits of the university, and voted for such a result. To obviate the objection which closed the Michigan University to women, a bill was drawn up, organizing a double school; that for girls to be taught by women. Some objection was made to this unusual provision, and the time was too short to urge its necessity: so the bill merely reads, that it may be taught by women. The date of this law is February, 1864. A school-building was finished last summer (1866), and the college opened in September. The regents elected a president and three professors at the outset, one of the latter being a lady. There is some danger that the two schools will become one, by an act of the Legislature. If this occurs, nothing important is gained; but, if the present organization continues, woman may here show what a true feminine culture implies: for, while woman differs widely from man, like him she needs development through her own work."
I have altered none of the statements in this admirable letter. It will be seen that Miss Chapin went to Kansas, desiring to accomplish two things: she not only wanted education, but position and compensation, for women, from the State fund. I want these also; but I only ask for the first, for I am certain the rest will follow. Neither do I think it wise to insist that women shall be taught only by women, until universities have done the necessary work of preparation. In all the colleges mentioned on the Oberlin list, women are employed as teachers: there are already a good number of professors of Greek and mathematics. Nor is the welfare of women alone a sufficient motive for me. I am satisfied, that humanity and civilization gain, in the mixed college, more than either sex can lose. It remains for me to give a few of the personal details which Miss Chapin's modesty has omitted. When she first thought it her duty to press this matter, she knew that she must be in Lawrence, in order to do the "talking" which must precede an act of legislation in America. She corresponded with Governor Robinson, in reference to a day-school in Lawrence, and started with her sister to take charge of it. On their way, they were startled by the terrible news of the Kansas raid. They hesitated for a little; but, thank God, in spite of raids, the work of the world goes on. Miss Mary went on herself in September, and, after a week's residence, decided to defer the opening of her school. In December, both sisters went, and began their daily teaching, and the gentle agitation which was to yield the great result. They also tried, at the East, to raise money to realize at once, on a small scale, their ideal of a practical course of study for women, especially of a scientific school. "Science," says Miss Chapin, "has not yet been applied to the arts of domestic life. The ordering of home, as a centre of comfort and culture, has yet to be considered. Architecture has much to do with civilization. The laws of health and the means of social progress lie entirely in woman's province. Horticulture will do more for her than calisthenics. She is ready to do useful work, but has no means. A very wasteful economy denies her this, to lavish thousands on her folly and ostentation."
I cannot detail all the obstacles which Miss Chapin's effort encountered. Mr. Charles Chadwick, of Lawrence, drew up the bill; General Dietzler and Governor Robinson pushed it. At the last moment, the original bill was carried off in the pocket of an opposing member; but the wit and quick memory of a woman saved it.
It has been mentioned, that, after its passage, a lady was elected professor, with a salary of $1,600, and the same for her assistant. It is almost needless to say, this was Miss Caroline Chapin. She has not yet accepted the position. The two sisters are at the head of a high school in Quincy, Ill., which has this peculiarity: there is attached to it a school in modelling, under the charge of a professed sculptor.
In the first part of this volume, I have intimated that a new effort has been made, sustained by the pleading of Theodore Tilton, to open Michigan University to female students. At the moment when these pages go to press, it seems uncertain whether this resolution will prevail with the present Legislature, or whether a motion for a university for women, under the same regents, will supersede it. The Greek professor has practically solved the difficulty, by admitting his own daughter to his classes, without asking the faculty. This example was set him, years ago, by Mr. Magill, in the Boston Latin School.
As these pages go to press, an anonymous statement appears, to the effect that there have passed examinations for the University of Cambridge, England,—Junior boys, 1,126; Junior girls, 118; Senior boys, 212; Senior girls, 84. It would seem that the conditions of the opening of this university are hardly understood. If I am right, these examinations confer a certain rank on the female scholars, but do not admit them afterward to the university.
SCHOOL FOR NURSES.
The most interesting educational movement, at this moment, in that country, is Miss Nightingale's "Training-school for Nurses," which has been in operation for three years in Liverpool. It was founded, after a correspondence with her, in strict conformity to her counsel. As a training-school, it may be said to be self-supporting; but it is also a beneficent institution, and, in that regard, is sustained by donations. A most admirable system of district nursing is provided, under its auspices, for the whole city of Liverpool, all of whose suffering sick become, in this way, the recipients of intelligent care, and of valuable instruction in cooking and all sanitary matters. It is too tempting an experiment to dwell upon, unless we could follow it into its details. Its report occupies a hundred and one pages.
It seems worth while to look into this report, and examine in detail its method of dealing with sickness among the poor. When Miss Nightingale drew especial attention to the want of such schools in England in 1861, some ladies and gentlemen in Liverpool came together, and entered into correspondence with her. Out of that correspondence grew the Liverpool school. The Liverpool Infirmary, the most considerable hospital in that city, entered into the plan, and offered its wards for the instruction of the nurses. The society proposed to itself three objects:—
1. To provide thoroughly trained nurses for hospitals.
2. To provide district or missionary nurses for the poor.
3. To provide trained nurses for private families.
Nowhere are hospital and private nurses so badly trained as in England; and Miss Nightingale well says that half the symptoms which are considered symptoms of disease are, in reality, indications of a want of air, light, warmth, quiet, or cleanliness, which properly instructed nurses would know how to supply. A want of punctuality in administering food, and of watchful care in detecting its effects upon the patient, create other classes of symptoms. The beer-drinking habits of the people lead to much intoxication; and we ourselves have seen ladies of quality lying on a sick-bed, where they suffered for the attention which a thoroughly stupefied nurse was incapable of giving. No amount of wealth, as Miss Nightingale testifies, can secure such nurses as wealthy patients often need, and for which a thorough hospital-training is required. The society strengthens her appeal by extracts from Dr. Howson's paper, read at the meeting of the Social Science Association in 1858.
The Liverpool school has erected a building, to carry out its purpose, eighty-five feet by forty. It has three stories, each of them eleven feet high; and, by a single glance at the plans which accompany the pamphlet, one sees that the arrangements for bathing and ventilation are what those of our new city hospital ought to be. One lady superintendent, with three servants, has charge of this building. It has thirty-one nurses under training. By the wages which they earn in the second and third years, the expenses of this Home are nearly paid, leaving a margin of about three hundred pounds to be supplied by donations. It is expected to be a self-supporting institution, except so far as it becomes a benevolent charity, by supplying to the poor, food and nursing. When the institution was ready to begin its work, the lady superintendent having been some months in training at St. John's College and the London Hospital, where the nurses educated by the Nightingale Fund are to be found, took possession of her building. Her head-nurses had been thoroughly educated. Pupils then offered: they were engaged for three years, the first year to be strictly probationary. Each head-nurse was to take charge of an entire ward of the hospital, to be responsible for the medicines and stimulants, always assisted by one pupil. Each pupil went first for two months to a surgical ward; then for two to the medical; then four at the surgical, and four again at the medical,—one course helping the other, and both filling the entire year under a thoroughly trained head. For the next two years, the pupil is employed without such superintendence wherever need is; and, for each of the three years, receives, in addition to board and lodgings, seventy dollars. At the Home there is a good library, and evening classes are held for the disengaged pupils. A superannuation fund has been started, to encourage respectable women to enter the Home. At the end of the third year, the Home has twenty-eight pupils under training, fourteen hospital nurses, fourteen district or gratuitous nurses, and ten employed in private families.
This gives an idea of the training process; but our chief interest lies in the district nursing. As soon as the Home had nurses it felt willing to trust, one of the experiments recommended by Miss Nightingale was tried. The wife of a Scripture-reader undertook to prepare sago, necessaries, &c.; the clergyman of the parish furnished a list of patients, and a central lodging for the nurse. The Home sent her out, supplied with cushions, blankets, and bed-rests. She went into the families, showed them what to do, and helped with her own hands. At the end of the first week, she came back, crying and begging to be relieved; she thought she never could bear the sight of the misery she encountered. But, in a short time, she was so strengthened by seeing the results of her labor, that she positively refused to take employment among the rich. It is easy to see what great advantages wait on this form of charity. As instruction is precisely what she comes to give, the poor cannot resent this from the nurse; she fears no imposition, for she is in the house at all hours of the day and night; her little gifts do not wound, but cheer like neighborly kindnesses. It is Miss Nightingale's idea, that such nursing is a far greater good than the establishment of hospitals. In six months, this nurse found two cases where the prolonged sickness of the wife had made drunkards of two otherwise steady husbands, and brought their families to the brink of ruin. The wives were cured, the husbands reformed, the families saved. A leaf from her report of cases will show what she did.
1. Asthma and bed-sores.—Lying on a floor; so thin, had to lift her on a sheet. Dirt, bad air: two children. Husband said he "was forsaken by God and man." Our nurse goes in, washes her, changes linen; lends bedstead and bedding, and air-cushions; cleans and whitewashes. The woman now sits up, and the man is again hopeful.
2. Internal cancer.—Nurse attended to the surgical operation, and administration of subsequent remedies. The woman is now at work.
3. Paralysis.—Nurse attended; gave instruction and food. Recovery complete.
4. A girl—as the doctor said—in a consumption. Hospital refused her as incurable. Beef-tea, wine, sago, and cod-liver oil supplied; and, in one month, she could walk to the nurse's lodging.
Out of all this success, the perfect plan developed. It had been proved, that the poor were willing to be taught how to nurse, and to keep their houses clean; that intense distress might be mitigated, and coming poverty arrested. It was also proved, that the nurse so employed could notify the health commissioners of incipient epidemics, and obtain for ignorant tenants, in return, necessary whitewashing, drainage, &c.
The city of Liverpool was now divided into eighteen districts, each of which, for practical convenience, was made to correspond to two church cures. The Home undertook to furnish a nurse to each district, provided it would elect for itself a lady superintendent, and raise a subscription for food, medicines, and necessaries. As soon as the superintendent is found, meetings are held to interest the district; each district having an average population of twenty-four thousand and over. A central lodging is then to be supplied for the nurse, and the district must furnish, for loan and use, the following articles:—
One iron bedstead, six pairs of sheets, six blankets, cushions, bed-gowns, shirts, flannels, wine, meat, sago, bread, coals, arrow-root, preserves, and vinegar.
If any thing excites one's envy in the current expenses, it is the amount of coals required. To think of warming forty people for one year for twenty-six pounds!
The superintendent is supplied with a map of the district, forms of recommendation, rules for patients and nurses, and slates and pencils to be hung at the head-board, to receive the directions of the doctor, and the inquiries of the nurse. In seven of the districts, the lady superintendents furnish the supplies at their own cost! How gladly ought any wealthy woman to avail herself of so sure a method! A strong woman is hired for scrubbing; and very often the first thing a nurse does is to demand whitewashing and repairs of the Board of Health. In each district, a person is provided to cook the necessary food; the nurse giving notice, through the superintendent, of her wants. The nurse herself confers with the doctors, waits on the surgeons, changes and cleanses the patient, and administers poultices, blisters, leeches, enemas, and the like. One Liverpool lady defrays the whole cost of washing the loaned linen for the eighteen districts! A registry of it is kept by the nurse.
We need not be surprised to find that this admirable plan has such marked success, that all the Liverpool charities are eager to play into its hands. Each district superintendent is appointed locally; but the Home has an out-door inspector, who looks after the district nurses. The superintendents make quarterly reports to the Home, and hold meetings of conference by themselves.
There is, at the seaside town of Southport, a hospital, which furnishes sea-bathing to invalids.
The Committee of Central Relief for the city of Liverpool are so delighted with this nursing charity, that they have already offered butcher's meat, three weeks of seaside bathing at Southport, and coals and money to any convalescing patient when deemed needful. The workingmen's dining-rooms offer, on proper application, warm dinners to convalescents; and the Home, through its inspector, superintendents, and nurses, makes sure there is no waste nor misuse.
The statistics for 1864 were as follows:—
| Apparently cured | 936 |
| Partially restored | 456 |
| Relieved before death | 488 |
| Still hopeful | 180 |
| Hopeless | 9 |
| Dismissed | 289 |
| —— | |
| Total | 2,358 |
Such a record as this makes one wish to emigrate to the land where such things are done. The rapid increase of the charity may be judged from the fact, that, in the previous year, only one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six patients were treated, and only six hundred and seventy-two were cured. This report comes to us with a letter and notes from Miss Nightingale. It is prepared with the most beautiful modesty. The names of the paid officers are given; but we cannot tell from its pages whose were the kind hearts and clear heads which first responded to Miss Nightingale's call. Nowhere has benevolent action accomplished so much as in Great Britain. Such a work as this may well challenge the gratitude and admiration of the world.
The "Arnott Scholarship" of Queen's College, London,—founded by Mrs. Arnott in 1865, for the promotion of the study of natural philosophy, and the highest scholarship open to women in England—has just been gained by Miss Matilda Ballard, a young lady of seventeen, daughter of Dr. W.R. Ballard, a native of New York, and, for some years, the leading American dentist in London. The prize, the money value of which is not far from two hundred dollars, consists of one year's free instruction and perpetual free admission to certain lectures, always interesting and instructive.
The ladies' classes at Oxford have proved a great success, and the committee have just issued a programme for the present term. The course of instruction includes Latin, French, Arithmetic, Euclid, German, &c. The Rev. W.C. Sedgwick, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, has undertaken to deliver a course of lectures on the Italian Republics of the Middle Ages.
On the 26th of October, 1864, a Working-women's College was opened in London, with an address from Miss F.R. Malleson. It is governed by a council of teachers. In addition to the ordinary branches, it offers instruction in botany, physiology, and drawing. Its fee is four shillings a year; and the Coffee and Reading Room, about which its social life centres, is open every evening from seven to eleven.
In France, the Imperial Geographical Society, which is, in a certain sense, a college, has lately admitted to membership Madame Dora d'Istra as the successor to Madame Pfeiffer. Madame d'Istra had distinguished herself by researches in the Morea.
In Calcutta, Miss Mary Carpenter has been starting schools for Hindoo women, free from all religious character or sectarian denomination.
DEACONESSES' INSTITUTIONS.
This seems the proper place also to insert some details about schools like those at Kaiserworth, which I could not procure in an authentic form in 1858. The Kaiserworth school opened under Dr. Fliedner, in 1822, with "one table, two beds, a chair, and one discharged prisoner"! In 1852, the King of Prussia laid the foundation of a home for the aged deaconesses who have served as teachers and nurses.
The school at Strasburg, under Pastor Härber, began, in 1842, with one sister from a higher rank of life. It undertakes to train servants, and is chiefly under women's control. Assistance is also given to clergymen in seeking out cases of temporal and spiritual distress, in detecting imposture, in attending the sick in their own houses, in teaching the poor how to nurse and how to cook, in promoting the attendance of children at school, in co-operating with charitable institutions to superintend sewing and mending schools, in influencing, for good, factory girls and servants; and, in the hospital at Mühausen, the women taught here make up bandages and prescriptions, cook for the poor and sick, receive the patients, and do out-door visiting. At Basle, there is a Deaconess House, under the charge of a daughter of a Basle manufacturer. It looks after the laboring classes, and provides for the sick.
The house opened at St. Loup, under Pastor Germond, in 1842, takes charge of sick children. At Geneva, a deaconess has had charge for six years; through whom five hundred servants get their places, and with whom they find homes when out of health or work. In 1859, twenty-one were nursed in the institution.
A house in the Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris, was proposed by M. Vermeil, in 1830. In 1840, Mademoiselle Malvesin offered to conduct it; her letter to Vermeil, and his to her, crossing each other. Holland and Sweden have opened several of these schools. In our own country, the Rev. Mr. Passevant, a Lutheran minister of Pittsburg, Pa., is establishing hospitals in every State, under the care of women. They are supported by contributions in all the city churches, except the Catholic. These hospitals are under the care of a sisterhood, who cannot, as yet, compete with the Sisters of Charity. It seems to me, that Mr. Passevant has erred in a most noble work, by drawing his sisters from the uncultivated classes. Such a work should bear the right stamp in the beginning. In Western Pennsylvania, also, Bishop Kerfoot has begun the noble work of endowing his whole diocese with suitable high schools for girls, where they may obtain at home, for one hundred dollars annually, what it would cost five times as much to procure at a distance.
MEDICAL EDUCATION.
As regards medical education, we know of two colleges, or, rather, of one college and one hospital, in Boston, where education is given. There is one in Springfield, and one in Philadelphia. We should be glad to get more statistics of this kind; for Cleveland, where Dr. Zakrzewska took her degree, is no longer open to female students, and Geneva is contenting herself with the honor of having graduated Dr. Blackwell. Nine women were graduated at the New-York Medical School for Women, in February of this year. Professor Willis then stated that there are three hundred female physicians in the country, earning incomes of from ten to twenty thousand dollars.
There is a female medical society in London. This society wishes to open the way for thorough medical instruction, which will entitle its graduates to a degree from Apothecaries' Hall; and it offered lectures from competent persons, in 1864, upon obstetrics and general medical science. Madame Aillot's Hospital of the Maternity, in Paris, still offers its great advantages to women; of which two of our countrywomen, Miss Helen Morton and Miss Lucy E. Sewall, have taken creditable advantage. They are both of them Massachusetts girls. Miss Morton is retained in Paris, and Miss Sewall is the resident physician of the Hospital for Women and Children, in Boston.
At present, to obtain thorough instruction in any branch, women are obliged to pay exorbitant prices, and receive, as the results of their training, but half-wages. In Boston, Dr. Zakrzewska has again unsuccessfully asked permission to become a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Many physicians, however, extend the fellowship which the institution denies, and the "Medical Journal" expresses itself courteously on this point. Efforts, sustained by the influential name of the Hon. Charles G. Loring, are at this moment making to secure the advantages of the Harvard-College lectures to women intending to become physicians.[48]
In 1863, there existed in St. Petersburg a stringent regulation, which prohibited women from following the university courses. A Miss K., who had a decided taste for medicine, without the means to pay for instruction, applied for such instruction to the authorities of Orenburg. Orenburg is partly in Europe and partly in Asia, and its territory includes the Cossack races of the Ural. These people have a superstitious prejudice against male physicians, and are chiefly attended in illness by sorceresses. Miss K. offered to put her medical knowledge at the service of the Cossacks, and received permission to attend the Academy of Medicine. The Cossacks promised her an annual stipend of twenty-eight roubles; but, when she passed the half-yearly examination as well as the male students, they sent her three hundred roubles as a token of good-will!
In France, a Mademoiselle Reugger, from Algeria, lately passed a brilliant examination, and received the degree of Bachelor of Letters. She appealed to the Dean of the Faculty at Montpellier for permission to follow the regular course, and was refused on account of her sex. She then turned to the Minister of Public Instruction, who granted it, on condition that she should pledge herself to practise only in Algeria, where the Arabs, like the Cossacks, refuse the attendance of male physicians. Unlike our Russian friend, she refused to give the pledge. She threw herself upon her rights, and appealed in person to the emperor. This was in December last, and I have not been able to find his decision. It was doubtless given in her behalf; for Louis Napoleon will always yield, as a favor, what he would stubbornly refuse as a right.
A female medical mission is to be despatched to Delhi, for the same reason. The physicians sent out are,—
1. To attend native ladies in the Zenanas.
2. To set on foot a dispensary for women only.
3. To train native women as nurses.
Of the medical profession, it should be stated, for the encouragement of women, that there are over three hundred graduates from the several medical colleges for women; and that there is scarcely a village throughout the country but has its woman physician, of greater or less skill. In New-York City, there are many successful physicians beside the Drs. Blackwell. Dr. Lozier has a practice of $15,000, and owns two fine houses, earned by her own perseverance. In Orange, N.J., Dr. Fowler is very popular, and has a paying practice of $5,000 a year. In Philadelphia is Dr. Hannah Longshore, with a practice worth $10,000 per annum; then there are Drs. Preston, Tressel, Sartain, Cleveland, and Myres, with incomes ranging from $5,000 to $2,000. In Utica, N.Y., Dr. Pamela Bronson is a successful physician. In Albion is Dr. Vail; in Weedsport, Dr. Harriet E. Seeley. In Rochester, Dr. Sarah Dolley numbers among her patrons many persons of wealth and fashion, who, but a few years ago, ridiculed the idea of a "female physician." Mrs. Dolley's practice brings her fully $3,000 a year.
Dr. Gleason of Elmira, Dr. Ivison of Ithaca, and Dr. Green, late of Clifton Springs, who has opened a water-cure somewhere in Western New York, all have a large amount of practice, and prescribe with the greatest acceptance for those who favor hydropathic treatment.
At Milwaukee, in the autumn of 1866, I found Dr. Ross. She is one of the consulting physicians of the Passevant Hospital and of the Orphans' Home. She has practised with steadily increasing reputation for ten years. She understands what is due to her position, and has had a hard struggle with the empirical women of the medical profession that crowd the great thoroughfares of the West. But she would neither lower her fees nor abate her requirements to compete with this class. She came of the best surgical blood. Her grandmother was Mercy Warren, married to Darling Huntress, of Newbury, and first cousin to General Warren, of Bunker's Hill. Our famous Boston surgeons of the same family might be proud of her reputation. She has established her practice and her character, and would agree with all that I have stated in the body of this book in regard to the great need of medical societies to guard the position of well-educated physicians, which is now at the mercy of a worthless college diploma. Dr. Ross goes to the Paris Exposition of this year (1867), as an agent for the State of Wisconsin. She deserves the honor; and the State has done itself credit by the choice. The professional position of the physicians at the New-England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, is also a matter for general congratulation.
The English Female Medical Society reports (June, 1866) twenty students and good results.
The physicians of this country have been occupied this winter in discussing the discovery, by one of their number, of the active infectant in fever and ague. It has been found in the dust-like spores of a marsh plant, the Pamella. In Paris, at the same time, a woman of rank claims to have discovered the cause of cholera, in a microscopic insect, developed in low and filthy localities. Her details were so minute, that the Academy of Science, which began by laughing at the introduction of the matter, has been compelled to listen; and the subject is now under investigation.
THE PULPIT.
A very interesting account has lately been published of Amélie von Braum, an educated Swedish lady, the daughter of an army officer. She began to preach in 1843, at Carlshamm, where she lived, in the lowest dens of vice and misery. She carried with her a clean cloth and lighted candles, which give a festive impulse to the Swedish mind; and her serious words produced an extraordinary effect. In 1856 she removed to Stockholm, and was earnestly entreated to go to Dalecadin, and instruct the people. From that time, she has acted as an itinerant evangelist, preaching in summer in the open air. People listen to her for hours in rapt attention.
In Sweden, there is also Mamsell Berg,[49] a brave young woman, who thought herself moved by the Holy Spirit to teach the young Laps. She could not get away from the thought that she ought to do it. A clergyman, to whom she spoke upon the matter, counselled her wisely: "Endeavor to shake off the feeling; if you cannot, then accept it as a vocation from God, and try it for six months." She said, "If I go, it shall not be for six months, but for three years." She went; and the three years became seven. She seems also to have been a noble and beautiful creature. She gathered the children around her, under the most difficult circumstances, expending her little property in putting up a schoolhouse for them, and laying in sacks of potatoes, that she might feed the half-famishing; learning herself the Laplandish language, teaching them the Swedish, and discoursing to them about the love of God.
In spite of the bitter words of warning which John Ruskin has thought it his duty to speak to such women as enter upon theological studies, a good many women in Great Britain and this country have engaged in what is properly the work of the Christian ministry. The only ordained minister whose work has come under our notice since the marriage of Antoinette Blackwell is the Rev. Olympia Brown, settled over the Universalist Society at Weymouth Landing, Mass., and lately called to Newburgh in New York. Her ministry has been highly successful, and is to be mentioned here chiefly on account of a legal decision to which it has given rise. The church at Weymouth Landing made an appeal to the Legislature, last winter, as to the legality of marriages solemnized by her. The Legislature gave the same general construction to the masculine relatives in the enactment which the English law gave to the old Latin word in the charter of Apothecaries' Hall; deciding that marriages so solemnized are legal, and no further legislation necessary.
Mention, too, should be made of Rev. Lydia A. Jenkins, who has been a successful preacher among the Universalists for the last eight or ten years, and is now settled at Binghamton, N.Y.
Very recently, during the illness of her husband, the minister at Bethesda Chapel, Newcastle, England, a Mrs. Booth occupied the pulpit, to the great interest and profit of the congregation. Among the Methodists and "Christians,"[50] as well as among the Quakers, women have always been received as preachers. In October, 1866, I found a Mrs. Timmins settled as the pastor of Ebenezer Church, three miles from Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she had been for three years. Ann Rexford is mentioned as an effective preacher among the Christians. Her preaching attracted large crowds in the State of New Jersey, some thirty years ago.
But the most remarkable record, if we except those to be found among the Quakers, of any single woman's work in the ministry, is that of Abigail Hoag Roberts, who was the settled minister of a church built for her at Milford, N.J., and who died in 1841, at the age of forty-nine.
With her ministry is interlinked that of two other women,—that of Nancy Gore Cram, of Weare, N.H., and a Mrs. Hedges. Mrs. Cram began life as a Free-will Baptist, and undertook a mission to the Oneida Indians. The spiritual destitution of Central New York in the year 1812 affected her profoundly. Not a preacher of her own denomination in New Hampshire could be induced to go there. Disappointed in them, she hurried to Woodstock, Vt., and laid the case before a conference of "Christian" elders and ministers, then in session. They understood her better. She hurried back to the field she had left; and, when the ministers followed her, they were astonished at her work. A church was built for her at Ballston Spa. She is described as a delicate, blue-eyed woman, with dark hair, dressing plainly in black silk, with her hair in a silk net; her whole appearance and manner befitting her work. She died in 1816, suddenly, in the fortieth year of her age. Mrs. Roberts was one of her converts,—a woman who was a constant preacher, from June, 1814, to the June of 1841, in which she died, and, for many years, a settled pastor over the church at Milford, where a monument has been erected to her. More than once she defended the unity of God in public discussion with the clergy, whom she brought to ignominious defeat. She travelled through the three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where her name is still a household word. More than once, she was threatened by her own sex with "tar and feathers." She seems to have been, like Ann Hutchinson, a witty woman. "If you feel called to preach," said one minister to her, "why do you not go to the heathen?"—"So far as I can judge," she answered, "I am in the midst of them." She had a large family of children, and was distinguished for her household skill. She was quite famed for delicate clear-starching, and, on one occasion, wove with a hand-shuttle twenty-four yards of woollen cloth between early morning and nine o'clock at night. Many people sought her for information. Disliking one woman's vulgarity, she said to her, "If you believe in the Holy Ghost, why not use the language that the Holy Ghost uses?" She was a great sufferer in her latter years, but continued to preach at the Milford church, where she had four hundred communicants, and a congregation, at times, of twelve hundred persons, even after she was compelled to lean upon a staff. The Rev. Eli Fay preached her funeral sermon, and bore testimony to her great ability. The life from which I have drawn these particulars was written by her son, and printed at Irvington, N.J.
Her colleague, Mrs. Hedges, died before her; but a singular anecdote is related of her. She was exercised with some doubts as to the separate existence of the soul, and besought God in prayer to satisfy her mind. It seemed to her, after retiring to rest, that her soul left her body, passed through locked doors, and found several unusual adjustments of furniture in the house, and at last returned to the pale form upon the bed. She rose happy, but, on trying to prove her vision, found every thing in its usual place. A thorough inquiry in the household, however, showed that the changes she had observed had actually occurred in the night, and continued for some time. Her experience was the not uncommon one of the Seeress of Prevorst.
It will be remembered, that, in the first edition of "Woman's Right to Labor," I proposed a deaconess in every church; and I found, the other day, a little record in reference to the old church at Amsterdam, in Holland, which I copy here:—
"In the church at Amsterdam, there were about three hundred communicants; and they had for pastors two admirable men, Smith and Robertson, and four ruling elders, as well as one aged woman as deaconess, who served them many years, though she was sixty years old when she was chosen. She filled her office honorably, and was an honor to the congregation. She sat commonly in a convenient place in the church, with a little birchen rod in her hand, and held the little children in much awe, so that they disturbed not the assembly. She diligently visited the sick and the infirm, especially women, and called on younger sisters, in case of need, to
watch over them at night, and to give other assistance that might be required; and, if they were poor, she made collections for them, among those who were in a condition to give, or informed the deacons of the case. She was obeyed as a mother in Israel, and a true handmaid of the Lord."
With the exception of "keeping the little children in much awe," which might or might not have been desirable, these are precisely the functions which I desire to see formally renewed. The church at Blooming Grove, Orange County, N.Y., has existed, for more than a hundred years, without a creed, and is governed by seven deacons and seven deaconesses.
The following resolution was introduced by the Rev. S.J. May, at the Unitarian Conference which met at Syracuse, N.Y., in the first week of October 1866:—
"Whereas women were among the first, the most steadfast, and the most fearless disciples of Jesus Christ; whereas women have been, in all ages, the most ready to embrace the religion of the gospel, and the most constant and devoted members of the Christian Church; and whereas, in several denominations, women have been among the most effective preachers of Christianity: therefore, Resolved, That we, Liberal Christians, should do well to encourage those women among us who are moved by the Holy Spirit to devote themselves to the ministry, and should assist them to prepare themselves in the same manner, and to the same extent, as we deem necessary for young men."
The convention, having just passed a resolution to admit female delegates to the session of 1868, rather shrank from this second vote. Yet of what use to receive delegates, unless they feel free to join in discussion? and what woman, likely to be sent as a delegate by any Unitarian church, will ever address the convention until it more than welcomes the above resolution? To the local conferences, women are already being elected, and will do great good if they can get courage to accept their membership practically, and to speak when they have any thing to say.
It would not be quite honest nor fair to those women who seek to enter the pulpit, if I did not here record my own experience in connection with it.
I know very well where my natural sphere of work lay, and could I have had a theological education in my youth, or had even the paths of the ministry at large been open to women, I have every reason to believe that I should be at this moment a settled minister. As it was, it never entered my head that the thing was possible; and except that I taught steadily in Sabbath schools, and visited as steadily among the city poor, I never turned toward ministerial work. In the first year of my marriage, now twenty-two years ago, my husband was settled in the city of Baltimore, as minister at large to the degraded population, which has a special character (or want of character) in a large city, in a slaveholding State. I say has, for I cannot yet speak in the past tense. He had daily schools of girls and women, and nightly schools of boys and men. The latter were of all ages from six to forty, and had been gathered together by a great personal effort. In this state of things, my husband was taken ill. It fell to me, in the first place, not only to nurse him, but to take charge of his night-school. The ladies could do very well without me in the day-school; but there was no clergyman, nor leading man of character and culture, who could be depended upon to take the general charge of the men and boys, among whom were some desperate characters. I went first in a very stormy night; and my Irish servant took her knitting, and sat upon the steps of the platform while I addressed them. It happened that not a single teacher braved the storm; and the school, when I called the roll, responded to the number of eighty. I told them that I knew how dearly they loved my husband, that he was very ill, and that the only way in which they could help him was to behave so well that he need feel no anxiety about his work. They responded at once to this appeal, and I carried home the best possible account. As Sunday drew near,—this night-school having been held on Monday,—my husband grew more ill and more anxious. He thought of the large, mixed congregation, which met him every week, and for which no provision had been made. We were on an outpost of our faith; we could not have summoned assistance in season, nor without an expense we could not well bear. I thought the matter over; said to myself that it was only like a large Sunday school; that the fashionable ladies, who often dropped in to hear the preaching, would certainly stay away, knowing my husband to be ill: so I told him quietly that I had made arrangements for the Sunday service. He was too weak to make inquiries, but was comforted at once. He was sick several weeks,—long enough for me to relinquish reading, and take to exhortation in pure despair; but he did not find a small congregation when he resumed his place, and that was my reward. Perhaps no such step was ever taken more simply, or with less idea of its natural consequences. When I came back to Boston, radical country ministers took pains to ask me to their pulpits. I shall not soon forget the first time I preached to a large Unitarian audience, with a good mixture of city people. It was at South Hingham; the church was crowded; the country covered with a crystalline mantle of snow, over which a clear moon glimmered. The beauty of that night is a permanent possession. So it went on, till I became, I believe in the winter of 1859 and 1860, the superintendent of the Sunday school at Indiana-place Chapel, in Boston, where I remained for five years. This broke up my preaching, for I could not leave town on Sundays; but it led to my addressing various Sunday-school gatherings, and my being asked to address Sunday schools when away from home in the summer. My addressing a Sunday school in Greenfield in the summer of 1865, while the pastor of the church was absent with his regiment, led, by his kind sympathy, to my preaching in the summer of 1866 in the regular Unitarian churches at Rowe and Warwick, as well as doing irregular service in many other places. The church at Florence had always shown me a generous appreciation; and I was often asked to preach for Theodore Parker's people at the Music Hall and the Melodeon. I always declined to speak for this last society, not because I do not sympathize with their purposes in the main, but because I would not consent to be advertised for a religious and especially a devotional service in the city which I make my home. There may be women who, in the present state of things, can do this innocently and properly; but I cannot go into the pulpit myself, except in the regular sequence of my work, and at the call of duty. The gaping crowd of curious people who would come to look at a woman in the pulpit, would disturb the sphere in which it is alone possible for me to work. It was the custom of the Music-Hall society to advertise for every Sunday, and they declined to relinquish this advertisement on my account. The delivering a course of lectures in Hollis-street Vestry in connection with the Suffolk Sunday-school Union, in April, 1866, showed me that there was a work of criticism to be done,—and necessary to be done,—which I could do: so in going West to examine the condition of certain colleges, in October, 1866, I gave it to be understood, that, if I were in any Western city over Sunday, I should prefer to preach for the Unitarian minister—giving him a "labor of love"—to addressing an audience at an evening lecture. This interfered with my pecuniary advantage; but I believed it was in my power to enter some pulpits that would not be offered to all women, and I desired to do what I could to create a demand for the preaching of women. In this way, I preached for Robert Collyer in Chicago, for Carlton Staples in Milwaukee, for Mr. Hunting in Quincy, and in the chapels of Oberlin and Antioch Colleges. I took the whole service, accepting no assistance in the reading or the prayer; for it is not well that a woman who fills the pulpit should seem to shrink from any service there, and sensitive women will always find their self-possession impaired by any second influence. I received the kindest sympathy and appreciation from the churches I have mentioned; and, in every instance but one, I received the usual fee for my service, voluntarily tendered. I think at least twenty other churches would have been open to me, could I have gone to them.
I do not offer this explanation of the manner in which I have been led into the pulpit, stupidly, in ignorance of the charge of egotism and folly that may be made against me by those who read it. I have borne harder things than that charge, for the truth's sake; and I hope that the real motive of this statement will be transparent to honest and gentle hearts.
I long to see women preparing for this work, for there are very few men in the field; and, if there were more than enough, the pulpit is still an eminently fit place for a woman. The encouragement I have received, will show young women what is open to them. With a few words of counsel to those who may desire to speak in churches, I leave the subject. The dress of a woman in the pulpit should be such as will attract absolutely no attention; yet it should be thoroughly graceful and lady-like. A black silk well made, with collar and cuffs of fine linen, is the best, with no ornament whatever save the needful brooch. Peculiarity should be avoided. When we are trying to win souls for heaven, we must not lose them, because of a "dress reform," which may wait patiently, until more important things are achieved.
Again, if the woman who enters the pulpit is a temperance, an antislavery, or a woman's-rights lecturer, it will be better for her to give lectures on these subjects in the week. In the pulpit, she should subordinate these subjects to theological reform, moral appeal, and that attempt to stimulate religious interest and faith in which most men fail. Nor would I have her, whatever her station in society, refuse the fee, small or large, which shall be tendered her. If she has no need of it, her "poor" will have; and it is important to let the ministry of women fall into the same social and congregational relations as that of men.
There has been a great change in public feeling since the day, not twelve years since, when I heard Dr. Parkman refuse Lucretia Mott permission to speak in the old Federal-street Church.
Among historical instances of the theological influence of woman, that of the Countess Matilda stands pre-eminent; but a book by Capefigue, recently published at Paris, shows, that Madame de Krudener was the first to conceive the idea of the Holy Alliance, and her influence over the Emperor Alexander was sufficient to induce him to propose what his allies had no power to decline. Her purpose was finally accomplished, by her engaging the emperor in prayer. She was finally exiled, and died, I believe, in the Crimea. It was pretended that her preaching was dangerous; but, as she spoke only in French, that could hardly be true.
ART SCHOOLS.
An art school, which started some years ago in Boston, in private hands, finally surrendered its casts, lithographs, and so forth, to the teachers of the Free Art School of the Lowell Institute. The female classes of this school are always crowded, and are doing a great deal of good. Artists are accustomed to say very disparaging things of the school at the Cooper Institute; but I visited it in December, 1866, and found a very great improvement within a few years. Under Dr. Rimmer, a most admirable lecturer on anatomy, there has been an infusion of new life. The drawings from casts looked better than I have ever seen them. They have a good master in color, and the drawing and engraving on wood by the pupils find a ready market. Two of them, Miss Roundtree and Miss Curtis, are said to have a high reputation. I was delighted to find a large class coloring photographs; for heretofore it has been almost impossible for women to receive decent instruction in this art. The classes are all full; and three times the number of pupils might be received, if there were more light in the large rooms. It is to be hoped Mr. Cooper may some time divide them, and put in gas.
I have taken advantage of the residence in this country of a well-known member of the Royal Academy, Mrs. Elizabeth Murray, to ascertain what circumstances led to the formation of the Society of Female Artists, in London. To Mrs. Grote, the wife of the historian, and Mrs. Murray herself, this society owed its existence, somewhere in the winter of 1854 and 1855. There is no objection to it, so far as I know, except one apparent on its catalogues, the present preponderance of distinguished amateur artists on the Board of Direction. I insert here Mrs. Murray's letter in reply to my inquiries. The best artists, such as Rosa Bonheur and Mrs. Murray herself, exhibit with this society.
My dear Mrs. Dall,—On my return to England, after an absence of many years, I found that women labored under very disheartening conditions; their professional occupations consisting chiefly of teaching, music and singing, literature and the fine arts. In the latter department, they came more under my own personal observation; and I found, that, although they were countenanced by men individually, collectively they were persecuted by men, seldom being permitted membership with any public body, or, when admitted, were not allowed the full privileges accorded to men.
For instance: At the Royal Academy of London, women are not admitted at all to membership. On the walls of that exhibition may be seen the works of women, which rank among the best; but here their privilege ends. They assist in bringing their quota of the entrance fees, the main source of income of the academy, while they are debarred from all privileges and emoluments.
The two water-color societies profess to admit women as
members, which they do to a very limited extent; but even here they are subject to the same restrictions. Under these circumstances, the project occurred to me of founding a separate and independent society, which should include only the works of female artists, in order to give to those excluded from other societies, opportunities of asserting their own powers.
The first step was to get up an exhibition to excite public sympathy in favor of the scheme. This was a most difficult undertaking, as opposition was met with, not only from men, but from the very women whose interests were at stake; those who were strong in the profession fearing to lose caste, and the weaker ones being afraid to act independently.
After much perseverance and explanation, several large-minded persons of the more moneyed and influential ranks in society came forward, and assisted, by their cordial co-operation, in establishing a temporary committee. Money was freely contributed; and the society had a fair start, opening to the public a very creditable exhibition of the works of female artists.
Finding that, for the future, I must necessarily be absent from England, I retired from the Committee of Direction.
The society has continued in a more or less prosperous condition up to the present time, although my plan of establishing an adequate school of art has not been carried out. Much private good has been the result; and I think the class of women for whom the society was founded, have been raised in position. Believe me, dear madam,
Very truly yours,
(Signed) Elizabeth Murray.
13, Pemberton Square, Dec. 22, 1866.
In Paris, Rosa Bonheur is now the directress, under the government, of the École Impériale de Dessein, established exclusively for young women.
LABOR.[51]
The advance of women, as regards all sorts of labor, in the United States, has been such as might be expected by watchful eyes; and yet reports on the general question will not read very differently from those published ten years ago. In New York, women are still reported as making shirts at seventy-five cents a dozen, and overalls at fifty cents. These women have two Protective Unions of their own, not connected with the Workingmen's Union; and most of them have, naturally enough, sympathized with the eight-hour movement, not foreseeing, apparently, that the necessary first result of that movement would be a decrease of wages, proportioned to the limitation of time. Ever since the beginning of the war, women have been employed in the public departments, North and South. It has been a matter of necessity, rather than of choice. The same causes combined to drive women into field-labor and printing-offices. All through Minnesota and the surrounding regions, women voluntarily assumed the whole charge of the farms, in order to send their husbands to the field. A very interesting account has been recently published of a farm in Dongola, Ill., consisting of two thousand acres, managed by a highly educated woman, whose husband was a cavalry officer. It was a great pecuniary success. In New Hampshire, last summer, I was shown open-air graperies, wholly managed by women, in several different localities; and was very happy to be told that my own influence had largely contributed to the experiment. In England, field-labor is now recommended to women by Lord Houghton, better known as Mr. Monckton Milnes, who considers it a healthful resource against the terrible abuses of factory life. At a meeting of the British Association, last fall, he produced a well-written letter from a woman engaged in brick-making. This letter claimed that brick-making paid three times better than factory labor, and ten times better than domestic service. In addition to persons heretofore mentioned, in this country, as employing women in out-door work, I would name Mr. Knox, the great fruit-grower, who, on his place near Pittsburg, Pa., employs two or three hundred. I have seen it stated, that, during the last four years, twenty thousand women have entered printing-offices. I do not know the basis of this calculation; but, judging from my local statistics, I should think it must be nearly correct.
To the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature on the eight-hour movement, the following towns report concerning the wages and labor of women, in 1866:—
Boston.—Glass Company, wages from $4.00 to $8.00 a week. Domestics, from $1.50 to $3.00 per week. Seamstresses, $1.00 a day. Makers of fancy goods, 40 to 50 cents a day.
Brookline.—Washerwomen, $1.00 a day.
Charlestown and New Bedford are ashamed to name the wages, but humbly confess that they are very low.
Chicopee pays women 90 per cent the wages of men.
Concord pays from 8 to 10 cents an hour.
Fairhaven gives to female photographers one-third the wages of men.
Hadley pays three-fourths; to domestics, one-third; seamstresses, one-quarter to one-third.
Holyoke, in its paper-mills, offers one-third to one-half.
Lancaster pays for pocket-book making from 50 to 75 cents a day.
Lee pays in the paper-mills one-half the wages of men.
Lowell.—The Manufacturing Company averages 90 cents a day. The Baldwin Mills pay 60 to 75 cents a day.
Newton pays its washerwomen 75 cents a day, or 10 cents an hour.
North Becket pays to women one-third the wages of men.
Northampton pays $5.00 a week.
Salisbury, for sewing hats, $1.00 a day.
South Reading, on rattan and shoe work, $5.00 to $10.00 a week.
South Yarmouth, half the wages of men, or less.
Taunton, one-third to two-thirds the wages of men.
Walpole pays two-thirds the wages of men.
Wareham pays to its domestics from 18 to 30 cents a day; to seamstresses, 50 cents to $1.00.
Wilmington pays two-thirds the wages of men.
Winchester pays dressmakers $1.00 a day; washerwomen, 12 cents an hour.
Woburn keeps its women to work from 11 to 13 hours, and pays them two-thirds the wages of men.
On the better side of the question, Fall River testifies that women, in competition, earn nearly as much as men.
Lawrence, from the Pacific Mills, that the women are liberally paid. We should like to see the figures. The Washington Mills pay from $1.00 to $2.00 a day.
Stoneham gives them $1.50 per week.
Waltham reports the wages of the watch-factory as very remunerative. In 1860, I reported this factory as paying from $2.50 to $4.00 a week. Here, also, we should prefer figures to a general statement.
Boston has now many manufactories of paper collars. Each girl is expected to turn out 1,800 daily. The wages are $7.00 a week. In the paper-box factory, more than 200 girls are employed; but I cannot ascertain their wages, and therefore suppose them to be low. I know individuals who earn here $6.00 a week; but that must be above the average.
The best-looking body of factory operatives that I have ever seen are those employed in the silk and ribbon mills on Boston Neck, lately under the charge of Mr. J.H. Stephenson, and those at the Florence Silk Mills in Northampton, owned by Mr. S.L. Hill. The classes, libraries, and privileges appertaining to these mills make them the best examples I know; and this is shown in the faces and bearing of the women.
We are always referred to political economy, when we speak of the low wages of women; but a little investigation will show that other causes co-operate with those, which can be but gradually reached, to determine their rates.
1. The wilfulness of women themselves, which, when I see them in positions I have helped to open to them, fills me with shame and indignation.
2. The unfair competition, proceeding from the voluntary labor, in mechanical ways, of women well to do.
For the first, we cannot greatly blame the women whom employers choose for their good looks, for expecting to earn their wages through them, rather than by the proper discharge of their duties. Their conduct is not the less shameful on that account; but I seem to see that only time and death and ruin will educate them.
For the second, we must strive to develop a public sentiment, which, while it continues to hold labor honorable, will stamp with ignominy any women who, in comfortable country homes, compete with the workwomen of great cities. There are thousands of wealthy farmers' wives to-day, who just as much drive other women to sin and death as if they led them with their own hands to the houses in which they are ultimately compelled to take refuge. Still further, it has come to be known to me, that in Boston, and I am told in New York also, wealthy women, who do not even do their own sewing, have the control of the finer kinds of fancy work, dealing with the stores which sell such work, under various disguises. I cannot prove these words, but they will strike conviction to the hearts of the women themselves, and I wish them to have some significance for men; for, if these women had the pocket-money which their taste and position require, they would never dream of such competition. One thing these men should know, that such women are generally known to their employers, and their domestic relations are judged accordingly.
The recent investigations into factory labor in England concern rather the condition than the wages of the women. At flower-making, 11,000 girls are employed from fourteen to eighteen hours daily. In hardware shops and factories, they work, from six years of age, fourteen hours daily. In glass factories, 5,000 women are employed, from nine years of age and upwards, eighteen hours daily. In tobacco factories, 7,000 women are employed, under conditions of great physical suffering. As knitters, from six years old, they work fourteen hours daily for 1s. 3d. a week!
This terrible state of things is partly owing to competition with the labor of French machinery. A great deal of ignorant prejudice against machines is one of its results. In Sheffield, files are still made by hand; while here, in America, we make watches by machinery! The disposition of the whole community, both here and in Great Britain, towards this labor question, is kindly. It has become a momentous social problem. During the fifteen years that my attention has been riveted to this subject, I have seen a great change in public feeling.
I have received the Sixth Annual Report of the Society for the Employment of Women, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury is President, and Mr. Gladstone a Vice-President. This society has trained some hair-dressers, clerks, glass-engravers, book-keepers, and telegraph operators; but its greatest service consists in the constant issue of tracts, to influence developing public opinion. Such an association should be started in New York.
I should have been glad to inaugurate in Boston, during the last six years, several important industrial movements. The war checked the enthusiasm I had succeeded in rousing; and I have not been able to pause in my special work of collecting and observing facts to stimulate it afresh, or to solicit personally the necessary means. How easy it would be for a few wealthy women to test these experiments!
I would first establish a mending-school; and, having taught women how to darn and patch in a proper manner, I would scatter them through the country, to open shops of their own. As it is, I do not know a city, in which a place exists to which a housekeeper could send a week's wash, sure that it would be returned with every button-hole, button, hem, gusset, and stay in proper condition. These mending-shops should take on apprentices, who should be sent to the house to do every sort of repairing with a needle.
I would open another school to train women to every kind of trivial service, now clumsily or inadequately performed by men. If, for instance, you now send to an upholsterer to have an old window-blind or blind-fixture repaired, his apprentice will replace the entire thing at a proportionate cost, leaving the old screw-holes to gape at the gazer. I would train women to wash, repair, and replace in part, and to carry in their pockets little vials of white or red lead to fill the gaping holes. Full employment could be found for such apprentices.
At Milwaukee, in October, 1866, I found a young woman well established as a hair-dresser. She belonged to a superior class of society, and encountered great opposition in carrying out her plan. "People would treat her much better," said a resident clergyman to me, in detailing her struggles, "if she were the willing mistress of a rich man." She had no taste for teaching, but I found in her a cultivated and pleasant companion. Since the war began, a good many women have been employed as clerks in the public offices at Washington. There is now some talk of their removal. If this should occur, it would be in consequence of unfit appointments, and the habits and annoyances which demoralized women have imposed upon the departments. The proper place to begin removals is obviously with the corrupt men, who have pensioned their mistresses out of the public coffers.
In Chicago, I found Fanny Paine, a girl of thirteen, acting as paymaster to the Eagle Works Manufacturing Company. She will, in one year, pay out a quarter of a million of dollars. She keeps the time-sheets, pay-roll, and account-book of each of the four hundred men employed. She receives about five thousand dollars a week from the bank, and makes the proper balances with the cashier, after paying her men. She knows every man, earns six hundred and twenty-five dollars per annum, and is represented as perfectly robust. It gave me no pleasure to find so young a girl in a position so exposed. I would have her uncommon faculties mature in quiet. The "London Athenæum" lately said, "A phenomenon worthy of consideration is the increasing number of female players on stringed instruments in France. At the examination of the conservatory this year, Mademoiselle Boulay gained a first, Mademoiselle Castellan a second prize. The violoncello has its professional students among the gentler sex. Madame Viardot is about to turn her experience to account, by editing a classical selection of music."
A very dear friend of mine,—Charlotte Hill, of West Gouldsborough, in Maine,—born a farmer's daughter, too deaf to teach, and too delicate to sew, had an intense love for music. She taught herself the violin. She then made a profession for herself by offering to play it at rustic parties; and one year, in the pursuit of this profession, she travelled more than eight hundred miles, and laid by three hundred dollars. This money was not spent on jewelry, but on the best books that our best publishers could furnish. It takes a genius to do a thing like that,—trust in one's self, and a far deeper trust in God; but there are multitudes of women whom suggestion and sympathy would lead into such thriving ways.
I have heard recently of a young girl in Shirley, who supports herself and her father by gunning. She not only sends game to market, but prepares the breasts of birds for ornamental purposes. She has bought her own house by her profits.
When I was at Florence, Mass., in the summer of 1865, I drove over to the famous button-factory at Easthampton. This great industry was founded by a woman; and, as I had often heard mythical stories about it, I wished to get at the facts. I found Samuel Williston, a very good specimen of a fine old English gentleman. He is a man between sixty and seventy, with hair and beard as white as snow. I found him in a blue coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and white pants, and very willing to tell his wife's story, if it would "encourage other women."
"My wife's father," he went on to say, "was a Mr. Graves. He was a poor man, with a large family of children. His wife and daughters used to go over to Northampton to get knitting from the stores. One day, all the knitting had been given out; and Mrs. Graves showed her disappointment so plainly that the shopman asked her to take some buttons to cover. In those days, all our buttons came from England, where they were made by hand; but our tailor had got out, and wanted some for coats and vests in a hurry. Mrs. Graves made about a gross, all her daughters helping, and did it so well that the work was continued. Then my wife took it up. She got some of the work from her mother. That was in 1825-26,—forty years ago. I had invested in merino sheep. I had ninety ewes and a large farm; but I was a young man, and found it hard to get along. It looked as though this business would help. My wife wanted to control the work. She hired girls to help her, and took all the orders that came. J.D. Whitney and Hayden & Whitney sold all she could make. When she had had the business a year, I went to Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, New York,—in short, I went all round,—with samples. I got my orders at first hand, and from that the business began.
"When we heard that machine-made buttons had been introduced into England, we sent over to buy the right to make them, and Mr. Hayden introduced them here.
"Every man must have his small beginnings," added Mr. Williston, with an embarrassed blush; "but, when a man has such a wife as mine, he is lucky."
It is said that nearly a million of dollars is invested in this button business at Easthampton. The Willistons are Congregational Christians; and the "Round Table" stated lately, that the wealth thus accumulated, besides being of great local value in developing the resources of the State, had established one seminary, built three churches, and assisted colleges and schools without number.
It is very rare that the labor of women becomes consolidated into capital; but there is no reason why it should not. The mother of James Freeman Clarke, whose name I use here in compliance with her own expressed desire, was a wonderful illustration of what common sense and determination will accomplish. The petted darling of a wealthy family, Madame Clarke found herself summoned, by her husband's illness and early death, to retrieve, almost unaided, the fortunes of six children. The first money which she could lay aside, at the head of a boarding-house, lifted the mortgage from a small property which she knew she was to inherit, and which she felt sure would increase in value. For this property she ultimately received her own price, being, to the great amazement of applicants, her own "man of business" in all negotiations. The small sum it yielded she put out at interest in new States, where money was scarce, and multiplied it tenfold before she died, not by careless speculation, but by investing it wisely in the heart of the great cities of Chicago and Milwaukee, by buying what she saw with her own eyes to be valuable. "I want women to know how to manage their own concerns as I did," she would say. "It only takes a little common sense. Women ought not to give up their property to men, or even ask their advice about it. The best men will prop up their shaky plans with a woman's money; but women should watch men, see where shrewd men put their money, and do as they do, not as they say."
I am sorry that the purpose of this volume does not permit me to show how this noble woman used the money she made for the profit, the religious advancement, and the bodily comfort of those who seemed to need its aid.
One other woman, whose name I am not permitted to mention, deserves to be spoken of in this connection. She was an orphan, and began life as a factory girl with twelve cents and a half. Her father had never dreamed of any need to educate a daughter. She took a sister into the factory with her; and, while one worked, the other went to school,—my friend opening a dressmaker's shop, at times, to speed the process. While in the mills, she secured, by a wise firmness, many privileges for the girls. She married, and, after the death of an only child, sought to make herself happy, by being of use; and opened, for the girls whose wages had been reduced, a Protective Union shoe-store, taking all that one man and eight apprentices could make daily. At last, she borrowed a hundred dollars, and went to Lynn,—the first woman that ever bought goods there. She soon controlled the prices of the trade, opened a second store, and finally bought out the Union.
Part of her store she devoted to fancy goods, and, for seven years and a half, did all the buying in Boston. She then went to Philadelphia, leaving the stores in her husband's charge, and took her degree at Pennsylvania College. After this, she lectured on Physiology throughout New England, being often profitably employed by the corporations to lecture to the girls. By this time, she owned her horse and carriage, her house, and twenty thousand dollars, beside having a good practice in a country town. Circumstances then carried her to California, where, in three years and a half, she made thirteen thousand dollars, partly by her profession, and partly by buying up Government vouchers, in which the men at the Navy Yard were paid. She gave gold, and received greenbacks. Before she left the State, one of its most eminent physicians came to her to know by what secret she cured patients whom he had given up. She showed him the errors of his own practice; and, when she returned to New England, left, with perfect faith, her patients in his hands.
If this woman were not still living, I should wish to record the details of her life; but they suggest so much, that I have not thought it right to suppress them altogether.
Mr. Thayer and two ladies have lately attempted, in Boston, at No. 28, Ash Street, a small experiment in the way of a lodging-house for girls. This was first suggested to the ladies, by the misfortunes of a young woman who came under their notice. They tried to hire a house, but found it cheaper to buy; Mr. Thayer being responsible for half the expense, and each of the ladies for one-quarter. The house was furnished at the cost of friends. It has gas and water in nearly every room, and shelters 29 girls. They pay for light, rent, lodging, and fire, repairs and service, $1.50 per week, and $1.25. There are two single beds in most of the rooms. The matron keeps an exact account of her expenditure; and each week the stores are weighed by one of the ladies, the waste being charged, as well as the marketing, to the girls.
The board, so managed, costs each girl $1.75 a week. Some of the girls wash for themselves in the evening, and a woman is hired for the house once a week. They take care of their own rooms. The matron employs a cook. There are only two rules,—that every girl shall be in at 10 P.M., and that a week's notice shall be given when any inmate desires to leave. No supervision is exercised except of the stores and the matron's accounts. The house was opened Dec. 15, 1866, and is a success according to its plan.
Grateful as I am to see this attempt made, I cannot feel that this plan should be followed for the future. Girls do not wish to receive charity, nor can any experiment be thoroughly successful, which does not pay, in the long-run, a fair percentage on the cost of house and furniture. Now, $4.00 a week is, in my estimation, only the fair cost price of the style of board and living which these girls receive; and it could not be kept at that under average management.
I do not know the cost of the house, but it would certainly rent for $600. The taxes upon it would be, at least, $120.
Now, let us suppose that 30 girls occupy it, each paying the highest rent, of $1.50 per week, which is $45 a month. In 13 months, they would pay $585;—a sum less than the rent alone; the house and water taxes, light, lodging, fire, repairs, and service, being thrown in gratis. I am sure my estimate of the rent and taxes is beneath the real value of both; and it is evident, that no efforts to benefit this class, on a large scale, will succeed, unless made to pay better: companies will undertake only profitable work. I want to see girls unite to furnish themselves, in a still more modest way, with what they need; and I wish to see a system of cooking-houses established, which shall simplify the whole matter.
In New York, a Working-women's Home is about to be established, the plan of which was long since submitted to the public. A building has been purchased on Elizabeth Street, which will afford accommodations for four hundred persons. For this, $100,000 has been paid, and $25,000 more will be expended in fitting it up. Half the amount has already been raised; and the managers are making strong efforts to collect the remainder. Of its objects, the "Evening Post" says,—
"In this Home will be found clean, well-ventilated rooms, wholesome food, and facilities for education and self-improvement. Girls exposed to the temptations of a city life will be surrounded by both moral and Christian influences.
"The institution is intended to benefit a class of women who now find it impossible, with their slender means, to procure comfortable homes, and are forced to live where moral purity, as well as health, is endangered.
"It is well known that families and boarding-house keepers almost always object to female boarders, and that many thousands of sewing-women find it difficult to obtain quarters. Artificial flower-makers, book-folders, hoop-skirt manufacturers, packers of confectionery, &c., are compelled, if deprived
of parental shelter, to accept such homes and accommodations as their very limited resources will command.
"It is not intended to make this a charitable institution; but the prices will be made so moderate as to be within the means of those who are to be benefited by it, while, at the same time, the establishment will be self-sustaining."
Mr. Halliday says of it,—
"The whole expense of first purchase, alterations, and furniture, will be about $140,000. Messrs. Peter Cooper, James Lenox, James Brown, Stewart Brown, William H. Aspinwall, E.J. Woolsey, and Mrs. C.L. Spencer, have, unsolicited, each contributed one thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars has been appropriated on condition that we obtained a like amount in donations. We expect to have accommodations for nearly five hundred, and the charge for board and washing will be from three dollars and a quarter to three and a half per week.
"There will be parlors, reading room and free library, and ample bathing rooms. None of good reputation will be refused admission; no others can become members of the family."
It is hoped to open the institution by the first of June.
A Young Women's Christian Association was organized in Boston in May, 1866, under the auspices of Mrs. Henry F. Durant. Furnished rooms have been provided at 27, Chauncy Street, where young women can obtain information in regard to employment, boarding-houses, and so on. The applications average one hundred a month; and the association seeks to establish a home, where there will be a restaurant for furnishing meals, at cost, to young women only, a free reading and library room, evening schools, rooms for social purposes, and temporary lodging-rooms. This is a most desirable thing to do; but it will not be of permanent benefit, if it puts into a false position any girls capable of self-support. The funds of wise and kind people must start all such movements; but, to be useful, they must be, not only in appearance, but in reality, self-supporting.
During the summer of 1866, Octavia Hill, of London, a grand-daughter of the celebrated Dr. Southwood Smith, reports that, after conferring with John Ruskin, she had hired houses for poor tenants. She put them into good order, and kept them in it. She would allow, in her tenants, neither overcrowding nor arrears of rent. She had no middle-men. The experiment was wholly successful, and paid at once five per cent.
Mr. Ruskin's lodging-houses, as they are called, are the best that have ever been established in London. They furnish the cheapest and cleanest lodgings for the poor, yet pay a good dividend. They are entirely in the hands of Miss Hill, as Mr. Ruskin himself is more skilful to remedy any social excrescence than patient to bear with it. He forgets, I think, what he once wrote concerning the soul that denies itself an encounter with pain.
I have mentioned, in the body of this book, the great number of women who have entered printing-offices since 1860. I have thought that it might help women in some other departments of labor, to understand how some of these changes were effected, and in what manner advantages have been secured, which might easily have been lost. In a town that I know of, a weekly religious paper was printed by eight women. The most experienced acted as foreman; and when, in the second year of the war, strikes began in the printing-offices, a friend directed her attention to the fact, and showed her how to meet a strike should it come, as it did, into her own town. As soon as she heard of it, she consulted with the rest of the hands. Seeing a possible though by no means a certain advantage, they agreed to be bound by her action in such an event. At last, the hands employed on the daily evening paper of the town struck, and the publisher knew not what to do. The girl went to him, told him she would bring seven able hands with her, and was accepted at once. He was mean enough to offer half-pay, which she peremptorily refused. The eight women entered the office on full pay. They had not been there a week, before every body rejoiced in the change. There was no swearing and no drinking, but a quiet workroom. At the end of a month, the disappointed men offered to return: their services were declined, but the publisher was mean enough to go to his foreman. "My men are ready to come back," said he: "I have no fault to find with you, but I can no longer give you full wages."—"Do as you please," replied the girl: "you cannot have us for any less;" and, as the whole seven said amen, the publisher had nothing to do but to keep them. The advantage that flowed from union and good sense in this case are evident, and could easily be imitated in many directions. During the past winter, Miss Stebbens, of Chickasaw County, Iowa, has been appointed notary public; such appointments being still so rare as to make the fact worth recording.
LAW.
The "British Medical Journal" was lately reported to have said that more English women seek for admission to the bar than for entrance into medical practice. If this be true, it is in marked contrast to the state of things in this country. Some women have studied law here; many have written in lawyers' offices; but, so far as I know, not one has desired to be admitted to the bar: and, in England itself, so far as I know, Miss Shedden remains the single example of a woman pleading in a court of law.
The number of laws passed the last six years, affecting the condition of women, has been very small.
The New-York Assembly in February, 1865, passed a law putting the legal evidence of a married woman on the same basis as if she were a feme sole. The Massachusetts Legislature have legalized marriage ceremonies performed by an ordained woman; and in January, 1866, Mr. Peckham, of Worcester, moved for a joint special committee "to consider in what way a more just and equal compensation shall be awarded to female labor." On the 4th of April, just past, Samuel E. Sewall and others petitioned for leave to appoint women on school committees. It is difficult to conceive on what ground such petitioners had leave to withdraw. These things are only valuable as indicating that public attention is still alive.
In Richmond, Va., recently, a charge of stealing was sustained against a woman, who was afterwards acquitted, by appeal, on the ground that no married woman could own her own clothing, and the consequent flaw in the indictment. In consequence, a bill to secure the rights of property to a married woman, as if she were a feme sole, has been offered in the House, to the horror of members who gravely assert that there can be no marriages, if a man does not own his wife's wardrobe!
In Missouri, the new Constitution confers on women the right to make a will; and the Legislature is considering the subject of introducing women to the State University.
In England, a curious decision has recently been made, in the case of a clergyman, of the Church of England, who left his children to the guardianship of his wife, without expressing any opinion as to their religious education. Joint guardian with the wife was a brother clergyman, who brings action to have it decided by the Court where the children shall attend church. The mother, and a son of thirteen, desire to attend a dissenting chapel; but Sir J. Stuart, Vice-Chancellor, decided that the father's religious faith must decide the matter for the children! Such absurdity will do more than any argument to secure the future freedom of woman. The family history of Madame de Bedout, recently dead at Paris, furnishes, also, a remarkable illustration of the absurdity of the old laws.
The will of Francis Jackson, of Boston, has been recently brought before our courts to obtain instructions as to its construction. Mr. Jackson's bequest for the purpose of creating an antislavery sentiment has been sustained; but the decision reads, February, 1867:—
"The gift in the sixth article, to create a trust, unrestricted in point of time, to secure the passage of laws granting to women different rights from those belonging to them under the existing Constitution and laws, does not constitute a legal charity, and is therefore void, and is remitted to the testator's heirs-at-law."
The gift in question was intended to aid the publication of such books as the reader now holds in his hand.
A very important convention came together at Leipsic, in September, 1865. One hundred and fifty women assembled, pledged to assert the right to labor, and to bridge the gulf between the compensations of the two sexes. Madame Louise Otto Peters opened the conference in an able speech. She stated that there were five millions of women in Germany, who could each earn, if allowed, three thalers a week. A thousand women might find employment as chemists, on salaries of one hundred and fifty thalers a year, exclusive of board and lodging. Another thousand might be employed as boot-closers. The foundation of industrial and commercial schools was urged. The weak point of the speech, as reported, appeared to be, that it took no cognizance of the fact, that an influx of five millions of laborers must necessarily lower the current rate of wages she proposed. I mention this convention in a legal connection, believing that it was intended to remove some local legal barriers.
A petition from sixty women of Potter County, Penn., has just been presented to the Legislature of that State, praying for the passage of an act to enable widows, on the death of a husband, to control the property acquired by joint labor, in the same manner as the husband does on the death of the wife.
When Freeman Clarke was Comptroller of the United-States Currency, he decided that a woman, not being a citizen, could not be a bank director. I consider this logical and satisfactory. I wish more decisions of this kind could be made. If the position that woman is not a citizen were pushed to its extreme, it would become untenable, her property could not be taxed, and the necessary remedy would be applied. One bank remonstrated against the comptroller's decision, desiring to retain the services of women "hitherto satisfactory." I see, by a Washington paper, that another national bank desires leave to diminish the number of its directors; so many of its shares being held by women, that nine men could not be found to fill the office.
Now, let some bright women buy up, through a broker, all the shares of such a bank, elect their own president and directors, and see what the Government can do. The absurdity of such a position, practically, is evident to all who know how business is done in our country towns.
SUFFRAGE.
Dr. Hunt and a few other women have continued their annual protests, without intermission. In somewhat the same way have petitions recently been sent to Congress in behalf of universal suffrage. We had no expectation that any favorable reception would await such petitions; but it was a duty to put them on record, if we could do it without perplexing public business. What fate they met in Congress, you have so recently heard, that I have no occasion to record it. Minnesota, New York, and other States, have petitioned their Legislatures to the same effect.
On the 7th of February, 1867, the House of Representatives in Kansas decided, in concurrence with the Senate, to amend a resolution for the amendment of the Constitution, by striking out the words "white" and "male," and making intelligence the basis of suffrage after 1870. This action has been since rescinded in some way, only the word "white" being stricken out. In Congress, Mr. Noel, of Missouri, offered a series of resolutions in favor of extending suffrage to women, and authorizing the calling of a convention to amend the Constitution in the State of Missouri. The acting Vice-President, the Speaker of the Senate, in recording his protest against the Suffrage Bill of the District of Columbia, said, "Make it intelligent suffrage, and I will not only vote for that, but for women also."
At the recent election of officers for the Philadelphia Mercantile Library, the female stockholders were admitted to the ballot.
The "New-York Express" says:—
"The exercise of the elective franchise for women was practically illustrated in the election of officers for the Mercantile Library, Philadelphia, on Tuesday. A poll was opened for the female stockholders, who, to the number of a hundred and fifty-six, cast their votes. Both sexes voted together; and the proceedings were conducted with the utmost propriety, there being no confusion or disorder, as is too often the case where men vote alone. The ladies walked up, and deposited their ballots with as much sang froid as if they were accustomed to the privilege. As illustrating how the thing might be done, this voting at the library election should be noted."
Some doubts having been expressed as to the fact of women having voted in New Jersey, first published by me, on information given by Thomas Garratt, in my lectures upon Law, I append here a history of the Constitution of New Jersey in that regard, which has been gathered by Lucy Stone and Antoinette Blackwell, as well as an account of my own recent interview with a member of the House of 1807, which finally repealed the obnoxious clause.
During the recent important discussion in the Senate upon the proposition to extend the ballot to the women of the District of Columbia, New Jersey was alluded to as a precedent. The precedent being disputed, the following statement was published in the "Newark Daily Advertiser:"—
"In 1709 a provincial law confined the privilege of voting to 'male freeholders having one hundred acres of land in their own right, or fifty pounds current money of the province in real and personal estate;' and, during the whole of the colonial period, these qualifications continued unchanged.
"But on the 2d of July, 1776 (two days before the Declaration of Independence), the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, at Burlington, adopted a Constitution, which remained in force until 1844, of which sect. 4 is as follows: 'Qualifications of Electors for Members of Legislatures. All inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation-money, clear estate in the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in Council and Assembly, and also for all other public officers that shall be elected by the people of the county at large.'
"Sect. 7 provides that the Council and Assembly jointly shall elect some fit person within the colony to be Governor. This Constitution remained in force until 1844.
"Thus, by a deliberate change of the terms 'male freeholder' to 'all inhabitants,' suffrage and ability to hold the highest office in the State were conferred both on women and negroes.
"In 1790, a committee of the Legislature reported a bill regulating elections, in which the words 'he or she' are applied to voters; thus giving legislative indorsement to the alleged meaning of the Constitution.
"In 1797 the Legislature passed an act to regulate elections, containing the following provisions:—
"Sect. 9. 'Every voter shall openly, and in full view, deliver his or her ballot, which shall be a single written ticket, containing the names of the person or persons for whom he or she votes,' &c.
"Sect. 11. 'All free inhabitants of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation-money, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for all public officers which shall be elected by virtue of this act; and no person shall be entitled to vote in any other township or precinct than that in which he or she doth actually reside at the time of the election.'
"Mr. William A. Whitehead, of Newark, in a paper upon this subject, read by him in 1858 before the New-Jersey Historical Society, states that, in this same year (1797), women voted, at an election in Elizabethtown, for members of the Legislature. 'The candidates between whom the greatest rivalry existed were John Condit and William Crane, the heads of what were known, a year or two later, as the "Federal Republican" and "Federal Aristocratic" parties, the former the candidate of Newark and the northern portions of the county, the latter that of Elizabethtown and the adjoining country, for Council. Under the impression that the candidates would poll nearly the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown leaders thought, that, by a bold coup d'état, they might secure the success of Mr. Crane. At a late hour of the day, and, as I have been informed, just before the close of the poll, a number of females were brought up, and, under the provisions of the existing laws, allowed to vote. But the manœuvre was unsuccessful; the majority for Mr. Condit in the county being ninety-three, notwithstanding.'
"The 'Newark Sentinel,' about the same time, states that 'no less than seventy-five women were polled at the late election in a neighboring borough.' In the presidential election of 1800, between Adams and Jefferson, 'females voted very
generally throughout the State; and such continued to be the case until the passage of the act (1807) excluding them from the polls. At first, the law had been so construed as to admit single women only: but, as the practice extended, the construction of the privilege became broader, and was made to include females eighteen years old, married or single, and even women of color; at a contested election in Hunterdon County in 1802, the votes of two or three such actually electing a member of the Legislature.
"That women voted at a very early period, we are informed by the venerable Mr. Cyrus Jones, of East Orange, who was born in 1770, and is now ninety-seven years old. He says that 'old maids, widows, and unmarried women very frequently voted, but married women very seldom;' that 'the right was recognized, and very little said or thought about it in any way.'
"In the spring of 1807, a special election was held in Essex County, to decide upon the location of a court-house and jail; Newark and its vicinity struggling to retain the county buildings, Elizabethtown and its neighborhood striving to remove them to 'Day's Hill.'
"The question excited intense interest, as the value of every man's property was thought to be involved. Not only was every legal voter, man or woman, white or black, brought out; but, on both sides, gross frauds were practised. The property qualification was generally disregarded; aliens, and boys and girls not of full age, participated; and many of both sexes 'voted early, and voted often.' In Aquackanonk Township, thought to contain about three hundred legal voters, over eighteen hundred votes were polled, all but seven in the interest of Newark.
"It does not appear that either women or negroes were more especially implicated in these frauds than the white men. But the affair caused great scandal, and they seem to have been made the scapegoats.
"When the Legislature assembled, they set aside the election as fraudulent; yet Newark retained the buildings. Then they passed an act (Nov. 15, 1807), restricting the suffrage to white male adult citizens twenty-one years of age, residents in the county for the twelve months preceding, and worth fifty pounds proclamation-money. But they went on, and provided that all such whose names appeared on the last duplicate of State or county taxes should be considered worth fifty pounds; thus virtually abolishing the property qualification.
"In 1820, the same provisions were repeated, and maintained until 1844, when the present State Constitution was substituted.
"Thus it appears, that, from 1776 to 1807,—a period of thirty-one years,—the right of women and negroes to vote was admitted and exercised; then from 1807 to 1844—by an arbitrary act of the Legislature, which does not seem to have been ever contested—the constitutional right was suspended, and both women and negroes excluded from the polls for thirty-seven years more. The extension of suffrage, in the State Constitution of 1776, to 'all inhabitants' possessing the prescribed qualifications, was doubtless due to the Quaker influence, then strong in West Jersey, and then, as now, in favor of the equal rights of women.
"Since 1844, under the present Constitution, suffrage is conferred upon 'every white male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of this State one year, and of the county in which he claims a vote five months next before the election,' excepting paupers, idiots, insane persons, and criminals.
"This Constitution is subject to amendment by a majority of both Houses of two successive Legislatures, when such amendment is afterward ratified by the people at a special election.
"Lucy Stone,
H.B. Blackwell."
In a recent visit to Perth Amboy, a friend directed my attention to a figure in a broad-brimmed hat, very much like that which used to adorn the cover of Poor Richard's Almanac. "That man is ninety-five years old," said he. "He spent his youth in preventing the New-Jersey people from running their slaves off South. A prospective emancipation act had been passed, which made the young negroes a poor investment; but our friend Parker, there, looked after them without any fee. We think he looks like Benjamin Franklin." The next day, I took a drive with Mr. Parker himself, and I found he possessed another claim on my interest. The original Constitution of New Jersey, adopted in 1776, left women free to vote, by leaving out the word "male." In 1790, when the Constitution was revised, a Quaker member, "Friend Hooper," rose to say that among his people the women were allowed their natural share of influence. At his instance, the matter was made clearer by the insertion of the words "he or she." In 1807, after an election contested with singular virulence, these words were expunged, and the word "male" inserted. I had never expected to see a member of the Legislature who repealed this phrase; but Friend Parker was there, and helped do it. He assured me that the women were not at that time anxious to retain the privilege; but that, if they had been, the Legislature was so irate, that the change would have taken place. Lads, both white and colored, and under age, had dressed in women's clothes, to swell the ballot, which was more than double what it should have been; the irritating question being the possible removal of the county buildings.
A few days since, I cut from the paper the following paragraph:—
"In the Kentucky House of Representatives, on Friday last, an address was received by the Speaker, from Mrs. ——, of New York, and read by the Clerk, asking the Legislature of the Southern States to grant suffrage to white women in the South, so as to give the Democratic party the advantage over the negro votes, if Congress passes a general negro-suffrage law. By following out this plan, Mrs. —— thinks the South can govern the country, as in the days of Jefferson."
I suppress the name, which was printed in full, in this paragraph, because it is the name of a woman I respect; and I earnestly hope the whole charge is false. If women seek to advance their own cause by mean and meretricious tricks,—such as those which have dishonored the policy of men,—may God for ever disappoint their hope! I would rather be defeated with the friends of liberty than crowned with its foes. It is because I believe woman strong enough to withstand the low and loose and degrading temptations of public life that I would lead her towards it. If she cannot enter it as an inspiration, may she be for ever shut out!
Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, assisted by Lucy Stone and Antoinette Blackwell, have been busy in agitating all legal questions, and especially the right of suffrage, ever since the formation of the Equal-Rights Association, in New York, in May, 1866. Wherever there is any prospect of a convention to change a State Constitution, it would seem wise to agitate the matter; but here, in Massachusetts, almost every thing has been done that should be to protect women, except to give them the right of suffrage. That question we are too wise to agitate, until the country recovers somewhat from the anxieties and perplexities of the war. We have no desire to win from an unjust judge, for our importunity's sake, a right which could never be useful, unless it were accorded with the hearty sympathy of the best part of the community. On March 16, 1867, a motion was made in the Massachusetts House to instruct the Judiciary Committee to report an amendment to the State Constitution, granting the right of suffrage to women. The yeas and nays were taken, and the motion was lost: yeas 44, nays 97.
In New York, Illinois, and Michigan, the question is to be brought before the Constitutional Convention. Wisconsin is our banner State, both branches of her government having concurred, April 4, 1867, in a resolution to submit it to the people. In New York, last year, Mrs. Stanton proposed herself as a candidate for Congress, and received, I think, thirty votes. It was so well understood that her election was impossible, that her card excited neither ridicule nor discussion. No one cared to turn aside from more pressing interests to consider it. It was therefore a waste of strength. I saw, with pain, that some women did not shrink from employing last year a politician's trick, and sent to Democratic members of the Senate and House the petitions for the right of suffrage for women, with which they knew them to possess no sympathy. Had these petitions been sent to Republican members of either House, they might have been overlooked in the press of graver anxieties. Mischievously sent to men like Cowan, women must have known that the petition would be produced, if it was only to annoy and perplex our honest friends of the Republican party. In what would our influence upon politics be better than that of men, if we resort to such measures? During the past year, I drew up, and forwarded to the Hon. Charles Sumner, a petition for the right of suffrage, and afterwards sustained it by two or three letters. I think Mr. Sumner never brought it forward; but I gladly defer to his judgment as to that. It was my duty to keep the subject in mind, and see that we did not appear, even in the tumult left by civil war, to lose sight of our claim. I am glad to offer public thanks to the Hon. George Thompson, who, in the meeting of the Equal-Rights Association, held in Philadelphia on Jan. 17, 1867, defeated a resolution of thanks to Mr. Cowan, and condemnation to Mr. Sumner, on precisely these grounds. "To thank men like Cowan, who did not desire to enfranchise woman any more than the negro, was to stultify ourselves," he said. "To condemn Sumner, because he did not think this the time to push the claims of woman, was not honorable to the long-tried friend of human progress."
Abroad, such things look better. The clean hands of John Stuart Mill—which no noble woman need fear to touch—have presented to Parliament the petition of fifteen hundred women for the right of franchise. This petition is so moderate and sensible, that it deserves to be preserved.
"The humble petition of the undersigned showeth,—
"That it having been expressly laid down by high authorities, that the possession of property, in this country, carries with it the right to vote in the election of representatives in Parliament, it is an evident anomaly, that some holders of property are allowed to use this right, while others, forming no less a constituent part of the nation, and equally qualified by law to hold property, are not able to exercise this privilege; that the participation of women in the government is consistent with the principles of the British Constitution, inasmuch as women in these islands have always been held capable of sovereignty, and women are eligible for various public offices.
"Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your honorable House to consider the expediency of providing for the representation of all householders, without distinction of sex, who possess such property or rental qualification as your honorable House may determine. And your petitioners will ever pray.
- "Mrs. W.B. Carpenter, 56, Regent's Park Road, London, N.W.
- C.M. Clarkson, Hatfield Road, Wakefield.
- Frances Power Cobbe, 26, Hereford Square, London, S.W.
- Elizabeth Garrett, L.S.A., 20, Upper Berkeley Street, London, W.
- Mary Ann Gaskell, Plymouth Grove, Manchester.
- Matilda M. Hays, Great Malvern.
- Mary Howitt, West Hill Lodge, Highgate, N.
- M.S. Kinglake, 50, Upper Brunswick Place, Brighton.
- Isa Craig Knox, 14, Clyde Terrace, New Cross, S.E.
- S.J. Lewin, Birkenhead.
- Harriet Lupton, St. Asaph.
- Elizabeth Mallison, Camp Cottage, Wimbledon.
- Harriet Martineau, The Knoll, Ambleside.
- Jane Martineau, 21, Tariton Street, London, W.C.
- Jane Moxon, 1, Cundall's Yard, Leeds.
- Mrs. Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Huntly Lodge, Edinburgh.
- Bessie R. Parkes, 15, Wimpole Street, London, W.
- Elizabeth Proctor, Polam Hall, Darlington.
- C. Sturch, Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, N.W.
- Mrs. Thomas Taylor, Aston House, Oxfordshire.
- Sarah Unwin, Hale Lodge, Edgeware, Middlesex.
- Anna Mary Howitt Watts, 24, Grove Terrace, Highgate Road."
I append to the above petition a few of the fifteen hundred names, which will serve to give it identity, and interest in this country. We miss, among the names, many names of the beloved dead; and many would doubtless be there that we know, could it be signed by any save property-holders.
A very powerful influence was brought to sustain this petition in Parliament; and among its advocates were James Martineau, Herbert Spencer, Professor Huxley, and Goldwin Smith. Mr. Mill seems to have presented a second petition, headed by Lady Goldschmid, and signed by three thousand persons; and another was offered, at the same time, by Mr. Russell Gurney. On April 11, 1867, the subject of female suffrage was first discussed in the House of Commons without being greeted with a laugh. A petition presented by Mr. Duncan Maclaren, from Edinburgh, was signed by eight university professors, six doctors of law, eighteen clergymen, eight barristers, ten physicians, ten officers, and two thousand other persons. Two women are said to have been lately elected parish overseers: Mrs. Slocomb for Brittadon, and Mrs. Craig for Bratton Fleming. The step-daughter of John Stuart Mill, Miss Helen Taylor, contributed to the January number of the "Westminster" an article which worthily sustained the far more comprehensive statement of her mother in 1851. It would be difficult to imagine a paper, however, that would appeal more forcibly to the English people. There is in England a Woman-Suffrage Association, which proposes to circulate that article as a tract. Mrs. P.A. Taylor and Frances Power Cobbe are among its most active members. Mrs. Bodichon has recently brought out two pamphlets on this subject. They contain one instance, which is not familiar, of the inconvenience of withholding the franchise from English women. Owners of estates seek to further their own interest through the voting power of their tenantry, and frequently eject women from farms, to replace them by men who have a freehold. On one Suffolk farm, seven women have been ejected. Among the instances which Mrs. Bodichon adduces to show the need of female votes are the neglect of female education; the refusal of leases, or the ejection of old tenants; the want of proper public spirit, which women might be expected to infuse into affairs; and the condition of workhouses, and charitable appropriations in general. In Austria, information furnished to one of Mrs. Bodichon's papers seems to show that the women have the same electoral rights as men, only that in a few cases they are compelled to vote by proxy. They vote as nobles, in their corporate capacity as nuns, and as tax-payers or merchants; but I need not say that there is much uncertainty in the Austrian administration of such a law.
In connection with the name of Fredrika Bremer, I have mentioned the great changes in Swedish law, mainly due to her influence. An indirect right of suffrage was further granted to women in 1862; but in December, 1865, the Reform Bill gave the election of members of the Upper Chamber to municipal and county bodies. In the election of these bodies, women take part. They must be unmarried or widows, be twenty-five years old, and have more than four hundred rixdollars per annum.
Article 15 of the Italian electoral law provides "that the taxation paid by a widow, or by a wife separated from her husband, shall give a vote to whichever of her children or near relatives she may select."
A curious petition has been lately presented to the Hungarian Diet. It is signed by a number of widows and other women who are landed proprietors, and asks for them the same equality of political rights with the male inhabitants of the country, as they possessed in 1848. These ladies represent that they have much more difficulty in bringing up their children, and attending to the estates, than men; that they have to bear the same State burdens; that they are not allowed to take part in the communal elections; and that, although many of them possess much more ground than the male electors, they have no political rights.
In 1848, these women were, for the first time, excluded from the franchise.
PROGRESS.
The real gain of a reform, starting from the heart of the family, must necessarily be very slow. I remember, that some years ago, when I printed my book on Labor, one of my kindest critics congratulated the public, that, of my nine lectures, I had published only these. He thought it was useless to contend for more book-learning for women, and the subject of civil rights still disgusted his sensitive ear. The common sense of the book on Labor ought to have shown him how I should treat the subject of education. He could not understand how the woman who gets an education which does not make her a "bread-winner," is essentially defrauded, nor how a woman, well paid for her labor, is essentially wronged, when she is denied the privilege of protecting it by her vote. There is, however, a surely growing sense of this, shown in the substantial advance of her civil rights.
1. In the early part of 1865, the people of Victoria, in Australia, assembled to elect a member of Parliament, were surprised to find the whole female population voting. Some quick-sighted woman had discovered that the letter of the new law permitted it; and their votes were accepted, and wisely given. The "London Times," in the month of May, says, that, in a country like Australia, it can easily believe that such an extension of the franchise will be a marked improvement, and thinks that the precedent will stand!
2. The government of Moravia has also, within the past year, granted the municipal franchise to widows who pay taxes.
3. In January, 1864, the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin, Ireland, restored to woman the old right of voting for town commissioners. The justice (Fitzgerald) desired to state that ladies were entitled to sit as town commissioners as well as to vote for them; and the chief-justice took pains to make it clear that there was nothing in either duty repugnant to womanly habits.
4. The inhabitants of Ain (or Aisne), in France, lately chose nine women into their municipal council.
5. At Bergères, the whole council consisted of women; and the mayor, not being prepared for such good fortune, resigned his office.
6. Our cause has found able advocates in John Stuart Mill, the "New-York Evening Post," and Theodore Tilton. If I were asked, whether, in connection with this gain, we have lost any ground, I should reply that we have decidedly lost it in connection with the daily press. I do not know any newspaper, if I except the "Boston Commonwealth," which will print a letter touching civil rights, from any woman, precisely as it is written. I think what we need most is to purchase the right to a daily use of half a column of the "New-York Tribune."
RECORD AND OBITUARIES.
I have been accustomed to connect with reports of this kind some honorable mention of distinguished women obscure or recently dead. I cannot do this at any length, after a pause of so many years; but a few names must be mentioned, a few facts recorded.
I had occasion, some years ago, to commemorate the services of Maria Sybilla Merian, painter, engraver, linguist, and traveller, who published, at Amsterdam, two volumes of engravings of insects and sixty magnificent plates, illustrating the metamorphoses of the insects of Surinam. I did not, at that time, know that some of her statements had been held open to suspicion. In the first place, she asserted, that a certain fly, the Fulgoria Lantanaria, emitted so much light, that she could read her books by its aid; still further, that one of the large spiders, called Mygale, entered the nests of the humming-bird in Surinam, sucked its eggs, and snared the birds. To all the contention which arose over these statements, Madame Merian could oppose only her word. Men who knew that her statements in regard to Europe were indisputable decided that her word could not be taken in Asia. A very common folly; but two hundred years have passed, 1866 arrives, and her justification with it. An English traveller, named Bates, has recently rescued quite large finches from the Mygale, and poisoned himself with its saliva, in preparing them for his cabinet.
I do not know how many years Madam Baring, the mother of the great banker, has been dead. It is only recently that I have heard, that to her prudence, activity, and business habits, the family attribute the sure foundation of their fortunes. Matthew Baring came to Larkbeare, near Exeter, from Bremen. His wife superintended, in his day, the long rows of "burlers," or women who picked over the woollen cloth he made. Her sons, John and Francis, sought a wider field for the fortune their father left, but did not forget to erect a monument to their mother's industry.
About a year since, Eliza W. Farnham laid down her weary head. I did not know her, nor did I sympathize in her theories. They were sustained by her imagination rather than her reason; by her impulses rather than any practical judgment. No moral superiority can justly be conferred on either sex of a being possessed of intellect and conscience. God has conferred no such superiority; yet I gladly name Mrs. Farnham here as a woman whose life—a bitter disappointment to herself—was useful to all women, and whose books, published since her death, show a marvellous mental range.
During the last year, Madame Charles Lemonnier died in Paris. She devoted her life to the professional education of women. For six years she found it so difficult to raise the necessary funds, that she had to content herself with sending her pupils to institutions in Germany. In 1862 the Society for the Professional Instruction of Women was at last constituted, and opened a school in the Rue de Perle. Two other schools have since been opened,—one in the Rue de Val Sainte Catherine; the other, in the Rue Roche. The morning is occupied in these schools with general studies; the afternoon, with industrial drawing, wood-engraving, the making-up of garments, linen, &c. She died after initiating a thoroughly successful work.
In July, 1865, there died at Corfu a Dr. Barry, attached to the medical staff of the British army. He was remarkable for skill, firmness, decision, and great rapidity in difficult operations. He had entered the army in 1813, and had served in all quarters of the globe, with such distinction as to ensure promotion without interest. He was clever and agreeable, but excessively plain, weak in stature, and with a squeaking voice which provoked ridicule. He had an irritable temper, and answered some jesting on the topic by calling out the offender, and shooting him through the lungs. In 1840 he was made medical inspector, and transferred from the Cape to Malta. He went from Malta to Corfu; and, when the English Government ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece, resigned his position in the army, and remained at Corfu. There he died last summer, forbidding, with his latest breath, any interference with his remains. The women who attended him regarded this request with the shameless indifference now so common; and unable to believe, that an officer, who had been forty-five years in the British service, had received a diploma, fought a duel, and been celebrated as a brilliant operator, was not only a woman, but at some period in her life a mother; they called in a medical commission to establish these facts. A sad, sad picture, which those of us who inquire into the fortunes of women can readily understand.
Last November deprived us of Mrs. Gaskell and Fredrika Bremer, of whom a fuller record will be found in the body of this work.
In Paris recently died Mrs. Severn Newton. She was the daughter of the artist Severn, the friend of Keats, who is now British Consul at Rome. About five years since, she married Charles Newton, Superintendent of Greek Antiquities at the British Museum. She was a person in whom power and delicacy were singularly blended. Ary Scheffer was accustomed to hold up her work as a model for his pupils. Her renderings of classic sculpture were so true that they were termed translations; and she had recently devoted herself to oil painting with great success. She died of brain fever at the early age of thirty-three, one of the most honored of female English artists.
The common sense of society accepts the need of education for women. It begs that they may be permitted to earn their bread; but let society once grant the suffrage to woman, and she will take care of her own interests. She will found colleges, distribute opportunities, and protect vocations.
Education must, in time, earn independence for most women. Independence, taxed and made a citizen of, will insist, in the course of years, upon its suffrage; but whoso will help to reverse the process, and grant suffrage, so that woman may herself indicate what education she wishes to receive, and what labor she wishes to perform, will speed the process by scores of years.
It was pleasant to see four hundred young women, of the highest health, the best breeding, of good social standing, and abundant means, blossoming like so many tulips, at Vassar,—we must add, also, of good ability, and more than average education; for only good scholars could pass the rigid examination required of those who enter. It was pleasant to see, that between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, when society offers its greatest allurements, four hundred wealthy girls could be found, ready to devote themselves in seclusion, and without even the stimulus existing at Oberlin or Antioch, to higher things. And then, if the want of public sympathy makes it a painful work to be always pushing the interests of women, such teachers and officers as one finds at Vassar compensate one for any amount of struggle. Miss Hannah Lyman, who is now the principal; Miss Mitchell, the astronomer; Dr. Avery, the resident physician; and Miss Powell, the professor of gymnastics,—it is only necessary to name to Eastern ears: but, besides these women, Vassar employs twenty others, in whom it would be hard to find a fault, and some of whom, we were glad to see, had taken their degree at Oberlin. Going westward to Antioch, it was pleasant to find other women who had taken their degrees, and were now teaching Greek and Latin. One of the graduates, employed as a teacher of mathematics, had won her own education in the college by teaching one year,—sometimes in distant district-schools,—and studying the next. At Oberlin, the picture was still more inspiring: for Oberlin has, I suppose, more pupils than any college in the land, if we except Michigan University; and one-half of them are girls and women. The practical working of this college is beautiful to see. It has been fortunate in the magnificent faith communicated to it by Dr. Finney. Most of the women who were its early students, and stamped its character, so that no scandal dared invade its borders, are now the wives of its professors, and many of them are still engaged in teaching. Mrs. Dascomb, who is the wife of the professor of chemistry, has been with the college from the beginning: she is as fine a person for her position, as lady-principal, as Miss Lyman; yet how differently have the two been trained! Mrs. Dascomb, by isolation, persecution, contact with the rudest elements in Western life, yet keeping, through all, a noble faith in manhood and womanhood; Miss Lyman, starting from the most distinguished social circle in Northampton, holding a high place among what Dr. Holmes would call the "Brahmins" of Montreal, and finally polished by a European tour, and holding control with a power as imperceptible as it is firm. At Milwaukee, beside Dr. Ross, to whose ten years of successful practice I have alluded, I found another physician, in happy partnership with one of the brothers of the craft, a Dr. Glass. He has lately moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin, where he has been several years in partnership with Miss Fairchild, and testifies that he has never seen her superior as a practical physician. Here, also, a young lady, of one of the best families, has lately opened a hair-dresser's store. Dr. Ross gives her sweet sympathy and cheer; but, as a proof that the world still needs converting, she has had a good deal of that insolence to subdue which pains just as much as if it were worth minding. Any thing like the number of female lecturers which I heard of in Illinois, I had never imagined. The medical women are readily accepted in most places, even without proper vouchers; and it is astonishing, how far common sense contrives to supply the place of education. But the want of vouchers is a serious evil, which must soon be met. In Chicago I heard wonderful stories of the business capacity of certain women. One lady, very well known on Michigan Avenue, brought one hundred thousand dollars' worth of Chicago City bonds to Boston and New York, and safely sold them for her husband. A farmer's wife, from the centre of the State, came up, while I was there, to speculate in corn. She said her husband had lost money several years in succession, and now she was going to try. By her first speculation, she made five thousand dollars; and this she put into competent hands, for re-investment. It gained her twenty thousand dollars. The Chicago merchants thought that she would go on speculating until she lost it all; but I do not. I think our Pleasant-street Hospital has proved that women are more cautious than men, and are willing to bear a good deal of obloquy rather than permit rash ventures to be made.
In the country, everywhere, I heard charming anecdotes of the vigor and self-sacrifice women showed in the early settlement of the States.
It happened one spring, that, when the ice broke up on the Fox River, a terrible storm of wind and sleet and rain came with it. Not a man in the State, however great the emergency, would have thought that he could cross. In this state of things, a woman was taken in childbirth, some two or three miles from the ferry. Just as the ferry-woman was going to bed, in the "outer darkness" of that terrible storm, she heard her name shouted from the opposite bank. She listened, and a grievous story was shouted across. She went to the stable and saddled her mare, and, all alone, forded the stream: the floating ice, heaped into walls, struck the sides of the faithful beast, and tore the woman's skirt to tatters. Now and then a flash of lightning showed her what progress she had made. At last, she struggled to the bank, and gave the needful help. Nobody ever asked how she got back. On the grass about Elgin, a whole ship's load died of cholera, nearly forty years ago. All the neighborhood stood back in dread; but I saw one aged woman, who closed the eyes of nine, and received the foreign blessing, which she felt, although she could not understand. In Quincy, I found two ladies just establishing a high school for girls, whom I have previously mentioned as having pushed through the endowment, for women, of the State University at Lawrence, and having opened a class in modelling in clay, under Professor Volkers. At the Cooper Institute I found more women at work than ever before, and to better advantage. A large class had just been formed to color photographs on glass, porcelain, and paper. Under such circumstances, we need not be disheartened because an ignorant woman, in a man's costume, has found the way to attract some attention in Europe and some contempt from Tom Hughes. Neither need it dismay us that the "Boston Advertiser" thinks the Equal-Rights meetings, in New York, have not been largely attended. There are those who want the suffrage, who do not care to encourage women to offer themselves for Congress before public opinion can accept them, and who are sufficiently disgusted by what looks like a mannish coalition with Democrats, to keep away from public meetings.
Meanwhile, the women of Parma clamor for the right to vote for Victor Emanuel. A freedwoman, Charlotte Scott, proposes a monument, on behalf of her emancipated race, to President Lincoln; and the noble inspiration of Harriet Hosmer carries out the thought.
But the very things we turn from force the necessary issues on the world. Wise action would never have brought the recent debate in Congress; nor prudent measures have secured thirty votes for Mrs. Stanton, and nine senatorial ballots for female suffrage. Once agitated in these quarters, the matter draws nearer to a final test.
"Ride on! the prize is near."