Part 3

But the more our nation has advanced in wealth and civilization, the more have the labors and the duties of the family state been shunned. Many virtuous young men are withheld from it from the incompetence and the extravagant habits and tastes of those they would otherwise seek for wives. Another class is withheld by guilty courses that destroy the hope of family love and purity. Another large class shun the toil, self-denial, and trials of married life, and prefer their ease and the many other enjoyments wealth will secure.

To these add the hundreds of thousands of young men who perished in our destructive war, and the emigration to new settlements where early marriage is impracticable, and as the consequence, the census shows hundreds of thousands of women who can never commence the family state as wife and mother. This is the great emergency that agitates society and forms the chief moral problem of our age. The question in its simplest form is this, What is to be done to secure the highest usefulness and happiness of _woman as a sex_, when marriage and the family state are more and more passing away? Our customs and our laws are all framed on the assumption that women are to be supported by husbands to rear up families; and yet marriage and the family state are more and more avoided. And what is the remedy to be sought? Will the ballot relieve this difficulty? Can any laws be enforced that will oblige men to marry? and if not, what are we to do to meet the emergency?

In reply, I will first state some important facts developed here in Massachusetts, where well-educated marriageable women most abound; not in employments for which God designed them, but in shops and mills and employment detrimental both to health and morals.

The report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities states that the present mode of collecting special classes of the helpless, the unfortunate, and the vicious into great establishments, managed by paid agents, is not the best method to secure their physical, moral, and social improvement, and that it involves many unfortunate influences.

Then it is suggested that the better way would be to scatter these helpless and unfortunate ones in families of Christian people. Now, as before stated, the family is God's mode of training our race to self-denying love and labor; and the _Christian_ family, in contrast to the worldly, is the one in which a small number is given to one or two, who have the spirit of Christ and live as he lived, to labor for others, and not for self-indulgent ease and worldly enjoyments.

Hundreds of Massachusetts women have this spirit of Christ and are pining for this ministry, which is as sacred and as effective as that of the church. Thousands of neglected orphans, or worse than orphans, abound on every side. The homeless, the aged, the weak, the sick, and the sinful, also, are all around us.

And how can truly Christian homes be established where there are no young children to train, no aged persons to watch over, no invalids to nurse, and no vicious to reclaim? Why are orphans thrown upon the cold world, and why are the aged held in a useless, suffering life except to furnish opportunities for Christian love and self-sacrifice? Here is the problem for Massachusetts. Let her do for her daughters as liberally as for her sons, and it will speedily be solved.

There are multitudes of women in unwomanly employments, who, if educated to the scientific duties of a nurse for young infants and their mothers, with all the advantages of high culture given to medical men, and with the social honor accorded to high culture, would be greeted in many a family, be sought as the most welcome benefactors of the family state, and take a superior position to that now given to the teachers of music, French, and drawing.

Again, there is no agent of the family state who has a more constant, daily influence on the character of childhood than the one who shares with a mother the cares of the nursery. And yet where shall we find an institution in which young women are properly trained for these sacred offices? The heir of an earthly kingdom is surrounded by the noblest and the wisest, who deem the humblest office an honor in his service. But the young heir of an immortal kingdom, whose career, not for a few earthly days, but for eternal ages, is to be decided in this life, to whom is he committed, and _where_ and _how_ were they trained for these supernal duties? The bogs of Ireland—the shanty tenement-houses—the plantation huts—the swarming, poverty-stricken wanderers from Europe, China, and Japan are coming to reply!

The influx of wealth, the building of expensive houses demanding many servants, and the increasing demands of social life, are changing mothers from the educational training of their own offspring to the training and care of servants; and yet, in our boarding-schools and colleges for women, how much is done to train them for such duties?

When I read the curriculum of Vassar and other female colleges, methinks their graduates by such a course as this will be as well prepared to nurse the sick, train servants, take charge of infants, and manage all departments of the family state, as they would be to make and regulate chronometers, or to build and drive steam-engines.

The number of branches introduced into female schools has nearly doubled since I commenced my school, while the real advantages gained by this increase have been lessened. And as yet little or no progress has been made in preparing women for the practical duties of their profession. The expenses of most popular boarding-schools confine their advantages to the rich, who do not aim to have daughters trained to do woman's work, or to earn their own independence.

The evils that women suffer from the want of proper training for their appropriate duties, few can fully realize. The Working-Woman's Union, in New-York City, reports that of the 13,000 applicants for work, not one half were qualified to any kind of work in a proper manner. The societies for aiding poor women report as their greatest embarrassment that but few can sew decently, or do any other work properly. The heads of dress-making establishments complain that few can be found who can be trusted to complete a dress properly, and say that those properly trained find abundant work and good pay. The demand for good mantua-makers in country towns is universal. In former days, plain sewing was taught in schools; but now it is banished, and mothers are too pressed with labor, or too negligent, to supply the deficiency.

In the middle classes, unmarried women and widows feel that they are an incumbrance on fathers and brothers, who, from pride or duty, feel bound to support them, and yet no openings offer for them to earn an independence. Thousands of ladies of good families and good education, with aged mothers or young children to support, can find either no employments or those offering starvation wages. The school or the boarding-house is the chief alternative for such persons; and yet every opening for a school-teacher has scores, and sometimes hundreds of applicants.

The factory-girls, and those in shops and stores, must stand six, eight, or ten hours a day in bad air and unwholesome labor. The influx of ignorant and uncleanly foreigners into our kitchens, and the exactions of thriftless young housekeepers from boarding-schools, drive self-respecting American women from many of our kitchens.

Meantime, in our more wealthy classes, those who have generous and elevated aspirations feel that they have no object in life—no profession, like their brothers, by which they can secure their own independence, and aid in elevating others. Our young girls are trained only for marriage; and when that fails, fathers and brothers forbid their earning an independence, as implying disgrace to themselves.

The remedy for all this would soon be achieved were woman's work elevated to an honorable and remunerative science and profession, by the same methods that men have taken to elevate their various professions. The establishment of _Woman's Universities_, in which every girl shall secure as good a literary training as her brothers, and then be trained to some profession adapted to her taste and capacity, by which she can establish a home of her own, and secure an independent income—_this_ is what every woman may justly claim and labor for, as the shortest, surest, and safest mode of securing her own highest usefulness and happiness, and that of her sex; a mode which demands only what, if once achieved as practicable, every intelligent and benevolent man would approve and delight to promote.

Here I feel bound to express dissent from the frequent implication that men are alone responsible for the present disabilities and wrongs of woman, owing to a selfish and tyrannical spirit not existing in my sex. There is no nation in the world, and never has been one, in which all classes of men were so trained to honor, protect, and provide for women as in our own. On the contrary, women with us have been trained to expect care and protection, and not to a chivalrous and tender regard for their own sex, such as has been cultivated in brothers, fathers, and husbands.

Moreover, women are trained to economy in details more than men, and have not the free use of money as have those who earn family support. As a consequence, when the raising of the wages of a school-teacher, or the charges of a seamstress, or the pay of a cook is discussed, it is often the case that women are no more ready than men thus to increase the advantages of their sex.

In the matter of educational benefactions, women have given liberally to endow colleges and professional schools for men; and it is a remarkable fact that, if we except Roman Catholic nunneries, I know not of even one case in this nation where a woman is supported as an educator by an endowment given by a woman.

As previously indicated, the main causes of the evils that now press on my sex are the want of appreciation of the honor and duties of the family state, and the decrease of marriage, owing to war, emigration, self-indulgence, and vices consequent on increase of civilization and wealth.

There is every evidence that men are as sympathetic, and as anxious to devise remedies for the evils complained of, as are our own sex; and the impolitic and unjust manner in which they have been treated by some who are generously laboring for the relief and elevation of woman, is greatly to be regretted. In all my past efforts, I have depended mainly on the powerful influence of my sex in gaining what was sought; for I believe there is no benevolent plan, which is so approved by judicious and benevolent women as to secure their earnest efforts, which will not receive from fathers, brothers, and husbands all that is sought. My only difficulty in the past has been to secure such appreciation from my sex of the honor and duties of the family state, of the need of scientific and practical training for these duties, as would secure their earnest attention, influence, and efforts.

While I would urge these views on the attention of all women who have any influence, I beg leave to suggest other modes by which the same ends may be promoted. Thus, every cultivated woman who dignifies domestic labor, by living in such a style as enables her to work herself, and to train her sons and daughters to work with her, is a co-laborer in this beneficent enterprise. Every woman who goes to her kitchen in the spirit of Christ, by self-denying efforts to train her servants to intelligence, honesty, and benevolence, is another blessed laborer on the same field. Every young lady who seeks to impart some of her advantages to those who labor in her service will be preparing to hear from their and her Lord, "Inasmuch as ye did it to these the least of my brethren, ye did it to me." Every school-teacher who trains her pupils to value home labor, and to learn to do all woman's proper work in the best manner, is also a minister of good to the family state. Every woman who uses her influence to introduce sewing into public schools, or to establish sewing-schools among the poor, is another co-laborer for the same high aim. Every woman who can bring the views here presented to the notice of wealthy and influential men and women, may be sowing seed that will yield rich fruits even for ages to come, by endowments secured through such quiet influences.

_A Woman's University_, that will realize the ideal aimed at, may, perhaps, come by no sudden growth, but by many experiments in different fields and diverse departments, each aiding to advance every other, till all eventually will be combined in a harmonious and perfected result. And for this consummation my good friend and opponent is as ready to labor as those of us who have not her courage and hopes as to the results of woman suffrage.

I stated that I have resumed the charge of the seminary I founded forty years ago, to teach the higher branches, with Mrs. Stowe, then, as now, my associate. We began when women were trained to domestic labor, and almost nothing else. We have seen the pendulum swing to the other extreme, till, both in families and schools, women are taught the higher branches, and almost nothing else. We now begin at the other end, and, by the aid and counsel of the judicious women of Hartford, we hope to set an example of a woman's university which shall combine the highest intellectual culture with the highest practical skill in all the distinctive duties of womanhood.

Our good friends of the women suffrage cause often liken their agitation to that which ended the slavery of a whole race doomed to unrequited toil for selfish, cruel masters. When so many men are toiling to keep daughters, wives, and mothers from any kind of toil, it is difficult to trace the resemblance.

Moreover, we of the other side are believers in slavery, and we mean to establish it all over the land. We mean to force men to resign their gold, and even to forge chains for themselves with it; and when we have trained their fair and rosy daughters, we will enforce a "Pink and White Tyranny" more stringent than any other earthly thraldom. And we will make our slaves work, and work from early dawn to dark night, under the Great Task-master, the Lord of love and happiness, until every one on earth shall fear him, as "the beginning of wisdom;" and then "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God," as the whole end and perfection of man.

For want of time, only a part of this address was delivered at the Boston Music Hall. Mrs. Livermore followed, and at Note A are remarks in reply to some of hers. What follows will present further views on the subject of Woman's Profession.

After resigning the charge of the Hartford Female Seminary, many circumstances combined to give me unusual facilities for observing educational influences in various institutions for both sexes.

Continued ill health led to extensive travels, and to protracted visits to a widely dispersed family and to former pupils settled in every section of the country. My father was president of a theological seminary, and my brother-in-law has been professor in two colleges and one theological seminary. One brother was valedictorian and tutor at Yale, and then president of one of the first Western colleges. Six brothers were educated in five different colleges, and thirteen nephews were students in six different colleges. Thirty-four nieces and nephews have been connected with a great number of different boarding-schools as scholars or teachers, while several hundred of my former pupils have been teachers or pupils in almost every State of the Union, and have extensively reported to me their experiences and observations.

I have also been connected with two organizations for establishing schools and female colleges in such a way as to make it a part of my duties to select teachers for schools and to organize faculties for large female institutions.

These opportunities, extended over a period of nearly forty years, have secured principles and conclusions of such importance as warrants not only general statements, but some details to illustrate.

A fundamental principle thus gained is, that the school should be an appendage of the family state, and modeled on its primary principle, which is, _to train the ignorant and weak by self-sacrificing labor and love; and to bestow the most on the weakest, the most undeveloped, and the most sinful_.

It is exactly the opposite course to which teachers are most tempted. The bright, the good, the industrious are those whom it is most agreeable to teach, who win most affection, and who most promote the reputation of a teacher and of a school or college. To follow this principle, therefore, demands more clear views of duty and more self-denying benevolence than ordinarily abound.

Moreover, the common practice of schools and colleges is, after a certain amount of trial, to turn out those who are too dull to reach a given line of scholarship, or too mischievous to conform to rules. It is assumed that the interests of the more intelligent and docile are to override those of the stupid and disobedient, and that schools and colleges are not to adopt the great principle illustrated in the story of the prodigal son, the strayed lamb, and the heavenly joy over one that was lost more than over the ninety and nine that went not astray.

The results of attempts to carry out this divine principle in school management, in my earlier years, were very encouraging. The frequent teachers' meetings were made the means of discovering the intellectual and moral deficiencies of each pupil, and then the difficult cases were apportioned to the care and watch of the several teachers, according to their adaptation to the duty assigned. Each was to consult and devise methods, report to me, and to receive counsel from me as to further measures. A few specific cases will illustrate some results.

For example, one of our best pupils and very intelligent in certain directions, was reported as utterly incapable of understanding the reasoning process in geometry. After experiments for more than a year, this pupil became not only one of our best mathematical scholars, but one of our most successful teachers in that study.

In another case, the pupil was one of a numerous class that have imagination and fancy undeveloped and apparently wanting, having little or no appreciation of poetry, fine writing, or works of imagination. A long course of discipline and practice so developed these dormant powers that this pupil not only became an admirer and critic of poetry and fine writing, but presented, as her closing public exercise, a specimen of poetry, devised and completed without aid, which would favorably compare with half of that which is written and admired in our current literature.

In other cases, in my school and among my friends, I have noticed that, while some children have all the mental faculties equally developed, others appear to possess small capacities, except in one or two directions, which in some cases are prominent and in others so undeveloped as to appear wanting.

For example, the son of a dear friend had been trained by good teachers and sent to a first-class college, where every ordinary method was employed to carry him through with at least moderate respectability, and all proved an utter failure. The young man was then placed with a good private teacher, who, after repeated experiments, ascertained that in certain directions the mental faculties were above mediocrity, but in points not reached by college training. Another method was adopted, and the result was, that the young man became distinguished in one branch of practical science, and eventually a popular and successful professor in a scientific school.

In treating both intellectual and moral deficiencies, great attention and care are demanded, so as not to deal with the willing but weak as with the careless or mischievous. Both efforts demand the labor of self-sacrificing love, and the rewards for such efforts have been witnessed in such abundance as to cause great regret that so seldom our higher schools and colleges aim at such results.

Another very important principle, especially in the training of women, is, that the duties of the family state, as performed when parents and children are united in domestic labors, have a direct and very decided influence in training the intellectual powers.

In such families, the first-born, especially if a daughter, begins almost in infant days to aid the mother in the care of the younger. Discretion, quickness, invention, and many other faculties are cultivated in the care of the little one, in regulating its caprices and controlling its mischievous impulses. She learns to wash and dress a younger child, to execute contrivances for its amusement, to regulate its habits, and to aid as a teacher in its first school lessons. She is trained to sew, mend, and to make family clothing, and then to aid in teaching these arts to the younger. The first rudiments of culture in the fine arts commence when assisting in ornamenting garden and parlor with flowers and with various contrivances. She learns to cook food, and to understand the varieties and the modes of preservation. And so of many other household duties which demand quickness of apprehension, discretion, energy, and perseverance. It is an unconscious intellectual training, usually enforced by limited means, and insuring benefits which the offspring of the rich rarely enjoy.

It is on this principle that Frobel arranged his system of the Kindergarten, which develops many mental faculties and trains to intellectual exercises before book knowledge is sought, chiefly by exercises that cultivate taste, ingenuity, contrivance, and skill in the use of the hand and eye.

The early training in my own personal and family history is a remarkable illustration of this principle. This was at a time when book-learning for the young was at its lowest stage. The whole of my childhood was a play-spell, where my chief contrivances were to avoid all kinds of confinement to study, or any kind of intellectual taxation, except in practical employments, for which happily I had a decided taste.

The death of a wise and tender mother at sixteen, and the consequent responsibilities that came on the eldest of eight children, still further developed the intellectual powers which are cultivated in domestic employments. But school duties were never relished, except as opportunities of furnishing merriment and various amusing contrivances for escaping study. No discipline by book knowledge was gained, and no reading attempted except in works of imagination.

It was not till school-days were over, that the discipline of sorrow, and the consequent forces of religion, sobered an exuberant nature and led to preparation for the office of a teacher.

Then, for the first time, commenced a training in book knowledge under the care of a college-trained brother, and then a few months accomplished what, with most school-girls, demands as many years. And this speed and success were secured by aid of faculties developed and strengthened chiefly by domestic training, together with the conversation and intellectual influence of the parents and family friends who were my educators.