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.