The Education of American Girls

by Anna C. Brackett

The debt of this country to Matthew Vassar's memory can hardly be exaggerated. In eight years of steady work, the college has contrived to exert an influence that is felt in all parts of the United States and of Canada. This is an educational influence in the broadest sense; it pertains to dress, habits, manners, regularity of life, and sleep; the proper preparation and serving of food, physical exercise, physiological care, safe and healthful study, and the highest womanly standards in all respects.

The college has received delicate pupils, whom she has sent out four years after, strong and well; and it is the rule, that the health of the classes steadily improves from the Freshman to the Senior year.

Vassar has been fortunate in retaining its resident physician throughout the whole eight years of its existence, and if the Faculty were to grow careless, the parents, educated by what she has been accustomed to give, would demand the care that their children need.

The pupils of Vassar belong to no special class in society, and are drawn from varied localities. When the college opened, she had upon her Faculty three women whose peers it would be hard to find, for excellence of character, refinement of feeling, delicacy of manner, attainment in science, and a quiet elegance of dress. Of these, one is now gathered to a wider sphere of usefulness, so we speak of Hannah Lyman by name, as a woman whose equal most of the students would never have seen, if good fortune had not taken them to Vassar. The first pupils of Vassar were thoughtful women, who had been long prepared for its expected opening. They appreciated at once the lofty influence of these examples, and the reverent respect they always showed was impressed upon every succeeding class. These teachers were in every detail of their lives, what intelligent, modest, and cultivated women should be.

As to dress, so far as example and counsel could do it, the pupils were taught simplicity.

As to habits, they were taught regularity, order, cleanliness, and the self-denial in small matters which would prevent then from annoying one another.

As to manners, the courtesy shown by so finished a gentlewoman as Miss Lyman, not only in all her intercourse with the Faculty and the teachers, but to the pupils, in all the minute details of official and social intercourse, took effect, as no lessons born of foreign travel or intercourse with the world could ever have done. It was courtesy growing out of character and conscience; it was not the mere dictation of custom.

To live with such regularity as Vassar enforced for four years, made it almost certain that these pupils would never fail of that divine blessing for the rest of their lives. Their meals were served at the minute, their rising and retiring were at the proper hours, and sleep was as secure as good health, cheerful minds, and moderate excitement could make it.

Their food was of the best material, of good variety, and most careful preparation. It is not too much to say, that none of the girls could ever have seen in their own homes such perfect bread and butter, so abundant milk and meat, or simple delicacies so carefully served without interruption for four years.

Their exercise was watched by the resident physician, and every flagging step or indifferent recitation was supposed to have two possible bearings, one upon the goodwill of the student, the other upon some incipient physical derangement.