This being secured by the citizens, the Association will appoint their Executive Committee from ladies of this city, one from each denomination, and others be added, selected by them, also a certain number of the Trustees of the Seminary to become members. Then the managers will appoint a collecting agent to raise funds to establish a University School with diverse departments, in which pupils of the Seminary and others shall be trained for all the distinctive duties of women, and all who wish it also be trained for some suitable womanly employment or profession by which to earn an honorable independence.
The first organized departments of the University would be the Normal and Health departments. Two highly educated ladies would become the Principals, and Dr. Neftel, and Dr. Taylor have engaged to act as superintending physicians. The Association will aim to provide land and buildings for these departments, and support the two lady principals so that they can receive into their families two classes. During the months of July and August, when most teachers have vacations, the class will
consist of enfeebled and exhausted teachers to be restored and trained to teach our system of Calisthenics, and to administer the methods of the Water Cure, and Movement Cure, and also to lecture on the laws of health in the communities to which they will return.
At all other periods of the year, these families will consist of young girls of delicate constitutions or poor health, to be trained to health and vigor, and at the same time to pursue a moderate course of study in the Seminary classes. These lady principals will also take charge of the Seminary classes in Domestic Science, Physiology, Animal Chemistry, Botany, and Calisthenics under direction of the Principals of the Seminary. On this plan two teachers will be supported by endowments provided by the citizens, and two by endowments provided by the Association.
The Trustees of the Seminary will control all funds given for the Primary, Preparatory, and Collegiate schools, and the Executive Committee of the Association will control the funds given for the University department. As to the probability of raising endowments, the former agent of the
Association testifies that he was cordially welcomed to the pulpits of almost every Protestant denomination and sometimes took larger collections than were given for any other objects.
There is one reason for endowing the H. F. Seminary, little understood. Three female institutions are soon to go into operation in Massachusetts, one endowed with a million and a half, another with half a million, a third very largely provided. These will offer advantages and salaries commanding the best teachers, and the public High Schools will do the same. Thus the boarding and other pay schools not endowed, will soon lose their best teachers and take up only with a humbler class. This, and the multiplication of studies and classes, will make boarding and day schools for the wealthy class, unless endowed, very inferior to the public High schools and endowed institutions.
Many female colleges have attempted a regular course of study demanding few classes for each term, and that all pupils enter at regular periods. But not one that I know of, has raised endowments to support teachers. Not even Vassar, though provided with over half a million, has a single endowment
to support a teacher. All has been spent in expensive grounds, buildings, and furniture to draw pupils from parental watch and care.