Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Then of the ladies I met in that circle, were Mrs. Judge Reeve, Mrs. Judge Gould, Miss Sarah Pierce, to whom I owe my school education, Miss Mary Pierce, Miss Amelia Ogden, Miss Lucy Sheldon, my father's sister Esther, my mother's sister Mrs. Mary Hubbard, and my mother. In my own family circle I used to hear my mother and aunts discussing a variety of literary and scientific topics, and especially remember their enthusiastic interest in the new discoveries of chemistry by Lavoisier, and their practical test experiments in the kitchen and study. Aunt Esther was deeply interested in medical science, and probably had read medical works as extensively as most physicians of that day.

Then Mrs. Judge Reeve, and my mother and aunts, would meet and read works of history, or travels, or some classic English literature. Miss Mary Pierce was an accomplished elocutionist, and when Judge Gould suffered from weak eyes, would

go day after day to read works of literature and discuss the topics introduced. Miss Sarah Pierce was head of the largest and most celebrated female school of the nation, and was overflowing with acquired knowledge, as well as poetic treasures.

Now not one of these ladies had studied a line of Latin or Greek, or of mathematics or other college studies which women are now seeking so earnestly at the sacrifice of health and all domestic culture. And yet when they met these gentlemen of the highest talents and education, they were regarded as fully their equals in mental power and intellectual debate. Indeed, some of my brothers educated in this circle, honestly maintained that women were endowed by nature with intellectual powers superior to men; and one brother argued in defence of this position in a public college exercise. Moreover, six brothers had a college education, while none of my sisters studied any part of the college course; and yet there has been no marked inequality of mental power and culture in this diverse training.

In that day, novels, by most women, were either

deemed an unlawful indulgence, or were taken as condiments only, while the substantials of literature and science were their chief intellectual pabulum. And having but few books and those the choice works of the best English classics, they were perused and reperused with such interest as rarely is given in colleges to the literature of Greece and Rome. And it was a frequent fact, that women were far better read in English classic literature than were their brothers and friends in colleges.

Now at the present day, when mothers and housekeepers meet gentlemen in social gatherings, is there anything in their conversation and pursuits to show the superior advantages of the female High Schools and Colleges, which have nearly supplanted the intellectual domestic training of a former generation? Have not novels, magazine stories, newspaper literature, and the fashions and accomplishments of the age taken the place of the more vigorous mental culture so common at a former period?

A variety of intellectual training which is pursued in connection with such interesting practical

results as woman's employments involve, tends to produce a vigorous and well balanced mind, far more than devotion to one or two professional pursuits such as the business of most men requires. And even in science and literature, we not unfrequently find some of the most learned men entirely deficient in intellectual balance and executive power; while their less learned mothers or wives are respected as wise and practical counselors.

The diminution of domestic exercise in the family state by mothers and daughters has equally tended to the loss of physical development and vigor in the present generation of women. The Creator has wisely adapted the physical organization of woman to her appropriate duties, so that the alternating sedentary and active exercises of the nursery and household are exactly those best fitted to sustain and invigorate the organs which now are so extensively displaced or diseased. And the artificial modes of exercise to remedy these evils, now so successful in the Movement Cure, are to a large extent in imitation of these domestic muscular movements demanded in the nursery and in