Harriet Beecher Stowe: a biography for girls

by Martha Foote Crow

CHAPTER XI
THE FOUNDERS OF A SCHOOL

While the family were getting settled in the new home, Catherine and Harriet were making their plans about their school. In this somewhat formidable endeavor the Beecher daughters were not without rivals. There was already an academy in Cincinnati whose curriculum was said to “embrace an extensive circle of female education,” which included French, needlework and penmanship. I dare say they also taught their scholars how to depict tombstones and weeping willows in chenille and silk embroidery, but history does not inform us on this point. There were also other schools for “female education” to the number of perhaps fifteen. But none of these things were allowed to discourage them, for this was the land of initiative and of experiment. Besides, the new institution was to be far superior to anything yet dreamed of.

Catherine’s scheme was indeed an ambitious one. It included a young ladies’ school for fifty or sixty pupils, with a primary department for about the same number of little girls, and also a primary school for little boys. These were to be the practice schools in her scheme for the training of teachers, exactly as we conduct our normal schools to-day. The school work was to be on the basis of that in a college; and they believed so thoroughly in woman’s teaching power, that they thought instruction in this country would never be well done until women were trained directly for that service. This was what these two young educators intended to do—to train perfect teachers for schools that were sure to arise and that were already sadly needed all over the central west and, indeed, throughout the country. They cherished the thought that women by their motherly instincts and by the qualities that housewifely lore and home-making and family life had fixed in the very fiber of their being, would be specially adapted to the work of teachers. The outcome in the next few decades of our national life proves not only that these two young theorists were able to look over the whole situation in the country and to see what was most needed and the best means to attain the desired ends, but also that they were far-sighted as to what the future was sure to bring forth. For the New England migration was to pass over the vast space of the prairies of all our middle states, making possible everywhere schools in which almost the whole burden of the work was to fall to the hands of women. They saw that the gigantic burden of subduing the land was to be the special work of men. It turned out to be so. They saw that men of tact, versatility, talent, and piety, as Harriet put it, qualities absolutely necessary to successful teaching, would be constantly called away to missionary and ministerial and patriotic duties. If such a man were put to the work of teaching, he would be, said Harriet Beecher, like a Hercules with a distaff in hand ready to spring at the first call of the trumpet. The question of salaries also came in, for a man must have enough to support wife and family. But we can hardly realize how it seemed in 1832 when two young women urged forward the idea that if young women were to be well prepared for the work of teaching, were to be placed in responsible positions and were to devote themselves to this work, adequate provision really must be made for their support. Catherine spent a good part of her life and wrote chapters in her books maintaining that side by side with the many well-endowed institutions for men, there should be also a well-endowed provision for the education of women. Those days were not so very long ago; but things have happened at a wild rate since then. Yet Catherine Beecher has by no means had her meed of praise for the work she did in training the public mind toward the good things that we now take for granted almost as much as if we had had them since the beginning of time. To be sure, it is not at all certain that it is the best possible scheme for an ideal country that nearly all teaching in its common schools should be done by women; but in the transition of a swiftly expanding people the great crisis was this: either the work of teaching had to be done by women or it could not be done at all. In this hour of need thousands of women arose to devote their lives to this work, receiving in payment a poor wage, always less than would be given to a man for the same work, and in the great majority of cases suffering the denial of that which is most precious to the woman, the home-making instinct.

Of course it cannot be asserted that Catherine saw all this; but she felt the immediate need of the situation. She believed that a woman’s nature was adapted to the precious occupation of training children, and being herself deprived of the place in life where her large, motherly nature could have its full fruition, she chose to aid her country in that day of need by helping to provide teachers for the swiftly forming schools all through the middle states.[7] To this work the American girls of 1830 were called by the voice of Catherine Beecher; aided by her capable sister she took in hand the training of women for the work. They hoped to be able soon to say to many hundreds of young women, “Here is a place where you may qualify yourselves to be first-rate teachers and receive help in finding a location in one of the many flourishing towns and villages of the west where such services are sorely needed.”

In doing all this for the sake of the nation’s welfare, Catherine and her sister were following an instinct that had been developed in the great body of New England women who shared with their fathers and husbands and sons the passionate interest in what a late writer has called its “adventure of democracy.”[8] Our hazardous experiment in putting national control into the hands of the people was now on trial before the monarchical governments of the European world, from which our forefathers had run away in order to find a place in this wilderness where they might worship in peace and govern themselves according to their own ideas of justice and right. But the New England mothers were made to see that they also had a part to perform in the state. These early statesmen said: “Our women must concur in all plans for education for young men or no laws will ever render them effectual. To qualify our women for this purpose they should be instructed not only in the usual branches of female education, but should also be taught the principles of government and liberty, and the obligations of patriotism should be inculcated in them.”[9] Hence these early statesmen advised their wives to see to it that their sons were instructed in the “divine science of politics.” These words naturally fired the women with a desire to fulfill this great ideal so that they should not be found wanting when the republic called to them plainly. But they must be ready. They saw that. To prepare them for the task that was theirs they must do more than the Spartan mother did when she gave the shield to her son, saying, “Return either with it, or upon it!” They must have something more than a haphazard training in the mere rudiments such as had been their part in the country school. It came into the mind of such women as Emma Willard and Mary Lyon to build up schools where the training could be obtained that would give the women what they needed in order to fit their sons for citizenship in the republic. And they all had the same idea. The subjects must be advanced—not chenille and samplers only—and the teaching must be excellent.

While Roxana Foote Beecher was training her daughter in philosophy and perspective, and Lucinda Foote was privately studying Greek with President Stiles of Yale College, Mrs. Emma Willard was struggling to gain a foothold for her seminary for the daughters of well-to-do families, and Mary Lyon was as resolutely pressing forward her effort to provide a school for those who must gain an education, if at all, in some more economical way. Mrs. Willard’s Female Seminary at Troy was finally founded in 1821, and Mt. Holyoke in 1837. But these were only two out of many. In New York State alone twelve academies for girls were founded between 1827 and 1839, and in New England and also further south the schools and academies for girls were multiplying so fast that there was soon opportunity for nearly every valley to offer some chance for further culture than the country school afforded to the young women of the region.

The great difficulty lay in getting the teachers for these schools; that was what pressed most deeply on the mind of Catherine Beecher. They could not call upon men for this work nor would it be well to do so if they could. “If men have more knowledge,” reasoned Harriet, “they have less talent in communicating it, nor have they the patience, the long-suffering and the gentleness necessary to superintend the formation of the child’s character.” Then with a touch of that passion for reform that was an essential part of the Beecher character wherever we find it she added: “We intend to make these principles understood, and ourselves to set the example of what females can do in this way!” In other words, she intended to be the best possible teacher, to be as near to perfection as she could compel herself to be. That she should make a declaration like this was not a piece of self-conceit; it was merely the expression of her ideal. This saying of Harriet Beecher makes one think of what Joan of Arc said when she was asked by what charm or magic she made the soldiers go into battle. She simply answered, “I called to them to come on into the battle and then I went right on into the battle myself!” This is the principle that is at the basis of all the charm that lures human beings into glorious heroism; it is the very reason for the existence of leaders and prophets.

In 1833, then, and for some years thereafter, the two sisters labored for the success of the school in Cincinnati. Harriet, with characteristic energy, threw herself into the work. As the work of the school increased she lived a life of incessant labor. What she tried to do was enough to wreck the health of the most sturdy. Her whole time was absorbed with her efforts for the new school. Even when on Sunday she took advantage of the day of rest to lay aside her cares, the ill feelings that disturbed her took away the rest and filled the hours with misery. She had everything but good health. She felt as if she were scarcely alive, and there was great danger that the old morbid feelings would return. Again we find her mind and heart suffering from the state of her health and physical ability threatened by excessive overwork.

About this time she was reading the life of Madam de Staël and “Corinne.” The work moved her intensely. It is interesting to see how she accounted for the great effect it had upon her emotions. She placed herself at once in the environment of her nation and saw how she herself illustrated a national characteristic. The effect of republican government, she reasoned, is to demand rigid forms of conduct. The emotions thus constantly repressed burn inwardly all the more. They burn to the very soul, leaving only dust and ashes, she thought. At any rate this seemed to her to be the case with herself. Tired to the bone, she felt that her soul was withered and exhausted. She wrote to Georgiana, her beloved friend, with whom she still shared all her deepest thoughts: “All that is enthusiastic, all that is impassioned, in admiration of nature, of writing, of character, in devotional thought and emotion, or in the emotions of affection, I have felt with vehement and absorbing intensity, felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems to be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to remain in a listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, since thought is pain, and emotion is pain.”

It is sad to see this young spirit so misunderstanding itself. What Harriet Beecher needed was to run away from those cares for even a short time. Just one little breathing spell, a little freedom from care and responsibility would have freshened her and made it possible for her to carry on her work far more thoroughly, though that perhaps could hardly have been—but at any rate, with as much again of buoyancy and joy. Now she heard little girls recite and told them fairy tales beginning in the immemorial way with “once upon a time” and spinning them out as she went along to the utmost delectation of her young-hearted audience; now she took up the more serious subjects of history and grammar, and the philosophy of taste. After school hours she had to attend the teachers’ meeting, where such subjects as scattering the quill pens and the copy-books on the floor, forming classes, drinking in the entry (drinking water, of course), giving leave to speak, ringing the recess-bell, and such details were solemnly discussed.