Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost AdvocatesJohnson, Helen Kendrick
History
Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates
Johnson, Helen Kendrick
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
But the tradition of the love that book revealed had crept into the heart
of the world, and now awoke. Through what struggles the "spirit of all
truth" promised by Christ was leading, and would lead the world, the
history of civilization can tell. Women shared in some degree the outward
benefits of the Revival of Learning. They became in not a few instances
Doctors of Law and professors of the great universities that sprang up, as
well as teachers, transcribers, and illuminators in the great nunneries. I
could give a long and honorable list of names of woman writers and
artists, in many lands, from Mediaeval to modern times; and one of the
interesting things revealed by such a record would be the number who were
working with, or were directly inspired and helped by, a father or a
brother. The Court contained some women who, like Lady Jane Grey, upheld
the model of purity while acquiring the learning that naturally
accompanied wealth. But elegant letters had again become the associate of
moral and religious corruption in the courts, and the "ignorance of
preaching" arose to combat it, in Cromwell, the Roundheads, the
Dissenters, the Covenanters.
Yet sound learning was not to die that Christian truth might live. Of the
band of Pilgrims and Puritans that came first to our shores, about one in
thirty was college-bred. While subordinating book-knowledge to piety,
they had learned scarcely less the dangers of ignorance. Their first
college was founded because of "the dread of having an illiterate ministry
to the churches when our ministers shall lie in dust." Charles Francis
Adams says, in regard to the establishment of Harvard College: "The
records of Harvard University show that, of all the presiding officers
during the century and a half of colonial days, but two were laymen, and
not ministers of the prevailing denomination." He further says that "of
all who in early times availed themselves of such advantages as this
institution could offer, nearly half the number did so for the sake of
devoting themselves to the gospel. The prevailing notion of the purpose of
education was attended with one remarkable consequence--the cultivation of
the female mind was regarded with utter indifference."
It was attended with still another remarkable consequence, the effect of
which is felt up to this hour. Only men who were fitted for a profession
were given a college education. It is well within my memory when it began
to be seriously said: "A college education is good for a boy, whether he
intends to follow a profession or not; it will make him a better business
man, or even a better farmer." The country girl is now, as a rule, better
educated than her brother. It also happened in those earlier days, that
the artist and the musician were expected to attain knowledge by
intuition, save in technical branches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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