Education - Philosophy & Social Aspects, Women & Education, Women & Education - History, Educational Reform, Women's History - U.S. - General & Miscellaneous, Sex Discrimination

A Plan for Improving Female Education

Name: A Plan for Improving Female Education
Author: Emma Willard
ISBN: 9780217664431

by Emma Willard

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This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
possible, and yet afford conviction, that it is practicable, to organize a system of female education, which shall possess the permanency, uniformity of operation, and respectability or our male institutions; 'and yet differ from them, so as to be adapted, to that difference of character, and duties, to which early instruction should form the softer sex. It now remains, to enquire more particularly, what would be the benefits resulting from such a system. BENEFITS OF FEMALE SEMINARIES. In inquiring, concerning the benefits of the plan proposed, I shall proceed upon the supposition, that female seminaries will be patronized throughout our country. Nor is this altogether a visionary supposition. If one seminary should be well organized, its advantages would be found so great, that others would soon be instituted ; and, that sufficient patronage can be found to put one in operation, may be presumed from its reasonableness, and from the public opinion, with regard to the present mode of female education. It is from an intimate acquaintance, with those parts of our country, whose education is said to flourish most, that the writer has drawn her picture of the present state of female instruction ; and she knows, that she is not alone, in perceiving or deploring its faults. Her sentiments are shared by many an enlightened parent of a daughter, who has received a boarding school education. Counting on the promise of her childhood, the father had anticipated her maturity, as combining what is excellent in mind, with what is elegant in manners. He spared no expense that education might realize to him, the image of his imagination. His daughter returned from boarding school, improved in fashionable airs, and expert in manufacturing fashionable toys; but, in her conversation, he s...