Female Education for this Non-International Non-Women's Day
I'm reading Richard B Sewall's biography of Emily Dickinson and I have particularly enjoyed the attention that he gives to her education.
Dickinson may not have had a multitude surrounding her telling her that she could be anything she wanted but she was far better educated than most people today.
Regardless of whether her father, Edward Dickinson (Sewell disputes this), cut a foreboding figure, he believed that his daughters ought to receive an education. He doesn't appear to be particularly unique in this matter. Emily attended Holyoke with her cousin. Sewall offers no hints that the young women at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke were a controversial presence. Emily had several textbooks written by women -- and not on embroidery either. On botany. Science.
Emily and the headmistress of Holyoke College, Mary Lyon, probably received a more rigorous education in a shorter period of time than we, for all our 16+ years of schooling. When Mary Lyon died (only a few months after Dickinson left the college), the eulogies given in her honor overflowed with respect and affection.
Virginia Woolf had said that a woman must have money and a room of one's own to write fiction. Emily Dickinson was extraordinarily privileged to come from one of Amherst's first families. She did domestic work in the way of housekeeping, gardening, and baking. But neither she -- nor her sister Lavinia nor her brother Austin for that matter -- had to do any farm work. (Watch any of the BBC programs with Ruth Goodman and you'll see what I mean.) Education was a requirement for a Dickinson where it would be a luxury for a farmer's child of any sex.
To a certain extent, I'm trying to argue that being an educated or accomplished woman in past ages was not akin to having two heads. More and more I believe that we have simply been ignorant of them. Such an argument does not detract from their accomplishments anymore than the fact that there are other women in astrophysics detracts from the talents of Lucie Green. The fact that we know more about Kim Kardashian than Lucie Green tells us a great deal about what we really think about the achievements of women. Don't get me started about the way we talk about the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen, as if Christine de Pizan, Aphra Behn, Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, or Fanny Burney never existed. (Just look at this list of early modern female playwrights.)
Elizabeth Bennet observed to Lady Catherine de Bourgh that her sisters were free to receive an education if they wished to, or to waste their time if they wished to. Human nature has probably changed little. Jane Austen was rather severe on those of her sex who chose self indulgence and ignorance.
"Discovering" Mary Lyon was a thrill. I know that there are more like her.
Dickinson may not have had a multitude surrounding her telling her that she could be anything she wanted but she was far better educated than most people today.
Regardless of whether her father, Edward Dickinson (Sewell disputes this), cut a foreboding figure, he believed that his daughters ought to receive an education. He doesn't appear to be particularly unique in this matter. Emily attended Holyoke with her cousin. Sewall offers no hints that the young women at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke were a controversial presence. Emily had several textbooks written by women -- and not on embroidery either. On botany. Science.
Emily and the headmistress of Holyoke College, Mary Lyon, probably received a more rigorous education in a shorter period of time than we, for all our 16+ years of schooling. When Mary Lyon died (only a few months after Dickinson left the college), the eulogies given in her honor overflowed with respect and affection.
Virginia Woolf had said that a woman must have money and a room of one's own to write fiction. Emily Dickinson was extraordinarily privileged to come from one of Amherst's first families. She did domestic work in the way of housekeeping, gardening, and baking. But neither she -- nor her sister Lavinia nor her brother Austin for that matter -- had to do any farm work. (Watch any of the BBC programs with Ruth Goodman and you'll see what I mean.) Education was a requirement for a Dickinson where it would be a luxury for a farmer's child of any sex.
To a certain extent, I'm trying to argue that being an educated or accomplished woman in past ages was not akin to having two heads. More and more I believe that we have simply been ignorant of them. Such an argument does not detract from their accomplishments anymore than the fact that there are other women in astrophysics detracts from the talents of Lucie Green. The fact that we know more about Kim Kardashian than Lucie Green tells us a great deal about what we really think about the achievements of women. Don't get me started about the way we talk about the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen, as if Christine de Pizan, Aphra Behn, Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, or Fanny Burney never existed. (Just look at this list of early modern female playwrights.)
Elizabeth Bennet observed to Lady Catherine de Bourgh that her sisters were free to receive an education if they wished to, or to waste their time if they wished to. Human nature has probably changed little. Jane Austen was rather severe on those of her sex who chose self indulgence and ignorance.
"Discovering" Mary Lyon was a thrill. I know that there are more like her.
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