The Education of American GirlsBrackett, Anna C. (Anna Callender)
General
The Education of American Girls
Brackett, Anna C. (Anna Callender)
Women -- Education -- United States
But some one says, tell us of the health of these 620 women. How many
are hopeless invalids, dragging out "tedious days and still more tedious
nights"? The limits of this essay would preclude the possibility of
giving the individual history of each, even if it were known to us; but
because facts here are worth so much more than general statements, and
because Dr. Clarke says it is data that must decide this question, I
have concluded to give the individual history, so far as known to me, of
the Class of '56. Not because there is anything peculiar in its history,
but because it is my own class, and I therefore know more about it. I
take the names in alphabetical order, and call the roll:
The first answers from Buffalo, where, as a minister's wife, she finds
ample opportunity to exercise all her powers. She reports good health.
The second is unmarried, and a teacher. For some years she has been
working among the freedmen's schools at the South. When I last saw her,
some five months since, she appeared the embodiment of good cheer and
sound nerves.
The third was for eleven years a teacher in a private seminary in New
York. A part of that time she had the entire charge of the school.
During the whole time she lost but two months from sickness. She is now
in good health, and enjoying home life.
The fourth does not answer to any roll-call here. She came to us clad in
mourning. Consumption had robbed her of a mother and sister, and we
always felt that her hold upon life was slight. The years added somewhat
of strength and elasticity, and we hoped against hope. She married soon
after graduating, and moved to the South. When the war opened, she and
her husband were obliged to flee; hunted from county to county and from
State to State, they at last crossed the Ohio. No sooner had her feet
touched her native soil, than, turning to him who was her all, she
said--Go. She lived to see the war closed; but the watching and the
waiting had been too much for her. The old family enemy claimed its
victim.
The fifth, in reply to the question, "What are you doing?" answers:
"Bringing up my boys. When my husband is away, besides attending to home
duties, I have charge of his business, receiving and paying out large
sums of money." She might have added, as I know, that she was general
city missionary without pay; that, when there was no man to fill the
place, she was Sabbath-school Superintendent, church organist, or leader
of the choir, and that many a poor girl had had her sentence in the
police court lightened through her timely intervention. I need not say
that she is not an invalid.
The sixth, a dignified wife and mother, I have not seen for three years.
At that time she entered no complaint of poor health.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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