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

by Catharine Esther Beecher

If all the women teachers of this nation could be trained to be health-keepers under the supervision of the highest class of educated physicians, and then sent forth to lecture in all our school districts teaching mothers and housekeepers the laws of health, and the methods of the Water and Movement Cures, it is probable that health and long life would be doubled all over the nation.

And here I would urge renewed attention to the state of female health in our country as exhibited in statistics published in a work of mine fifteen years ago, and introduced in a chapter placed at the end of this volume. I have never found any reason to doubt the correctness of the impression made by these statements at first, nor to suppose any marked

improvement at the present time. For the diminution of domestic labor by school girls of all ages and classes; the increase of mental labor in public schools; the increase of cares to mother and housekeepers in country as well as cities, from increase of the refinements of civilization; the increased use of stoves and furnaces without proper arrangements for ventilation; the increase of unhealthful labor for women in unventilated stores, shops, and mills; the unhealthful fashions of dress, and the fact that at this day women receive more delicate constitutions than those given by mothers of a former generation; all these things indicate an increase rather than a diminution of the causes that undermine the health of women.

This brings me to the main object of this meeting, which is to enlist the interest and influence of the ladies present, in devising and executing plans for the proper education of the daughters of this city—by methods that shall remedy the evils that have been set forth, and which shall serve as a model to other cities and towns through our nation.

In detailing an outline of the plan aimed at, I

will first state that it has already received the approval of ladies of good judgment, and of practical experience as mothers and housekeepers; and also is approved by the Trustees of the H. F. Seminary.

I appear at this time as the Secretary and Gen. Agent of the American Woman's Educational Association. This consists of ladies of high character and position in various states which meets annually to receive reports of agents and direct their operations. This Association has established several institutions at the West, the most important being the Milwaukee Female College. The method employed was to take a school already organized as the nucleus, and then offer to the citizens to secure endowments to support teachers, on condition that they provided a suitable building and tuition fees to support a certain number of superior teachers. This was done, and for fifteen years that institution, in its primary, preparatory, and collegiate schools has successfully carried out one portion of the plan of the Association, some teachers being supported by endowments provided by the Association, and others

by tuition fees. The chief agent of the Association has had the control and supervision of this institution now numbering nearly 200 pupils from all the Protestant denominations. The chief difficulty has been the fact that the Association is located at the East, and its work done at the West.

It is now proposed to carry out the plans of the Association more completely in an institution at the East, under the immediate charge of an Executive Committee, resident in the same place as the Institution.

It is proposed to organize the H. F. Seminary like that at Milwaukee, with Primary, Preparatory, and Collegiate schools all under the care of the Trustees as at present. These schools to be furnished by the citizens, with building, library, and apparatus equal to those of the High School, and a course of study instituted allowing entrance only at certain periods, and limiting the number of studies each term, as is done in the College and High School. Also to raise endowments to support two of the highest class of teachers, so that they can secure homes and salaries equal to those given to college professors.