More than two hundred institutions of the grade of Troy Seminary are now reckoned, extending to South America and to Athens, Greece. Half the number are in the Southern United States, and two-thirds of them confer degrees.
Associated with Mrs. Willard at Troy, in the department of science, was her distinguished sister, Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps. Later she was the head of “Patapsco Institute,” a female diocesan school of high reputation. She was the second woman elected a member of the “American Association for Advancement of Science,” and in 1866 read before that body a paper on “The Religious and Scientific Character and Writings of Edward Hitchcock,” and in 1878, one on “The Infidel Tendencies of Modern Science.” Her educational works on botany, chemistry, geology, and natural philosophy had a large circulation.
Names which soon rose to high distinction in educational work were those of Miss Grant and Miss Lyon, of Massachusetts, Miss Catherine Fiske of Keene, N. H., Miss Catherine Beecher of Connecticut, and the Misses Longstreth of Philadelphia, Pa.
The work of Miss Fiske was nearly cotemporary with that of Mrs. Willard. For twenty-three years, up to her death in 1836, she carried on a school which received some 2500 pupils to a course of study which embraced botany, chemistry, astronomy, and “Watts on the Mind.”
Miss Catherine Beecher, who was endowed with the marked individuality of her family, conducted a seminary at Hartford, Conn., from 1822 to 1832, and later one at Cincinnati, O. Her course of study included Latin, and calisthenic training was a conspicuous feature. She gave prominence in her instruction to the worth of domestic skill.
She wrote text-books on mental and moral philosophy and upon theology, and did not forget to prove by publishing “a domestic receipt book,” that, though learned, she had not soared above the true sphere of woman.
To the schools already mentioned came pupils from every State in the Union, either from families of means or to receive the generosity of the principals.
Mary Lyon was born among the Massachusetts hills in 1797, and graduated from the position of teacher in the little schoolhouses, and again as a student from Byfield Academy; then from the charge of Adams Academy at Derry, N. H., and from a like position in Ipswich Academy, Mass., in both which she was associated with Miss Grant. To her was due the conception of “a school which shall put within reach of students of moderate means such opportunities that the wealthy cannot find better ones.”
To the execution of her plan the gathering of a few thousand dollars was necessary. The labor involved may be inferred from the fact that in the list of contributions the sum of fifty cents repeatedly appears. The most serious obstacles were found in the antagonism to what seemed to many a needless project. Said Dr. Hitchcock: “Respectable periodicals were charged with sarcasm and enmity to Miss Lyon’s plans. She remained unruffled.”
When, in 1834, the Massachusetts General Association declined to indorse the enterprise, a Doctor of Divinity made haste to say, “You see that the measure has utterly failed. Let this page of Divine Providence be attentively considered in relation to this matter!”