THE
EDUCATION
OF
American Girls.
CONSIDERED IN A SERIES OF
ESSAYS.
EDITED BY
ANNA C. BRACKETT.
“The time has arrived, when like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharpthat justice does not slip away and pass out of sight and get lost; for there can be no doubt thatwe are in the right direction. Only try and get a sight of her, and if you come within viewfirst, let me know.”—Plato Rep. Book IV.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
FOURTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-THIRD STREET.
1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
PRINTERS, ELECTROTYPERS AND STEREOTYPERS,
108 TO 114 Wooster Street, N. Y.
TO THE
SCHOOL-GIRLS AND COLLEGE-GIRLS
OF
AMERICA,
BECAUSE WE BELIEVE THAT THEIR IDEALS ARE HIGH AND THAT
THEY HAVE STRENGTH TO MAKE THEM REAL,
This Book is Dedicated
BY THE
WOMEN WHO, IN THE INTERVALS SNATCHED FROM DAILY LABOR,
HAVE WRITTEN IT FOR THEIR SAKES.
PREFACE.
The Table of Contents sufficiently indicates the purposeand aim of this book. The essays are the thoughts ofAmerican women, of wide and varied experience, bothprofessional and otherwise; no one writer being responsiblefor the work of another. The connecting link is thecommon interest. Some of the names need no introduction.The author of Essay IV. has had an unusuallylong and varied experience in the education and care ofWestern girls, in schools and colleges. The author of theessay on English Girls is a graduate of Antioch, hastaught for many years in different sections of this country,and has had unusual opportunities, for several years, ofobserving English methods and results.
The essays on the first four institutions, whose namesthey bear, come with the official sanction of the presidingofficers of those institutions, who vouch for the correctnessof the statements. Of these, VII. is by a memberof the present Senior Class of the University, who has institutedvery exact personal inquiries among the women-students.The author of VIII. is the librarian of Mt.Holyoke Seminary. The writer of the report from[Pg 6]Oberlin is a graduate—a teacher of wide experience, andhas been for three or four years the Principal of theLadies' Department of the college. The resident physicianat Vassar is too well known as such, to need anyintroduction.
There are many other institutions whose statisticswould be equally valuable, such, for instance, as theNorthwestern University of Illinois, which has not onlyopened its doors to girl-students, but has placed womenon the Board of Trustees, and in the Faculty.
From Antioch, which we desired to have fully represented,we have been disappointed in obtaining statistics,which may, however, hereafter be embodied in a secondedition. In place thereof, w