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Our pioneer educators.
To woman rather than to man, and to woman in this century rather than in any former one, belongs the credit of preparing the way for the future liberal education of women.
Heretofore the aids to her education have been few and defective.
A really liberal education for her has hardly been possible.
Collegiate and University courses have been closed against her; so that if occasionally a woman has succeeded in gaining the reputation of a scholar, it has been mainly due to her own unaided exertions,--a triumph of her personal genius and will.
We have reached a state of public sentiment now, however, which, partially, at least, accords to woman the right to enter any field of literature or art, which she may choose; and, to a certain extent, we are furnishing her with such aids as for generations have been furnished for her brothers.
Already we are gathering excellent fruits from this advance made in our theory and system of woman's culture.
Our multiplied young ladies' seminaries and collegiate institutions, and still more our colleges and professional schools in which the two sexes are, to their mutual benefit, prosecuting together the studies which were formerly confined to only one of them, are important results already attained.
Still maturer fruit we have, in the increasing numbers of
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thoroughly educated women who are now prepared to occupy chairs of instruction, once filled only by the most honored alumni of our best universities.
We are coming to welcome woman's taste, and tact, and power, into every department of our educational work, and we have much to hope from the new element thus introduced.
Without attempting to name, even, the many eminent women whose personal attainments and services have contributed largely towards this result, we shall, in this chapter, briefly sketch the career of only two of them, who, by common consent, must be held to rank as pioneers in this most excellent work.
First among the women, still living, who have attained high rank as professional educators, must stand the name at the head of this sketch.
And this position
Mrs. Willard deserves, whether we regard her as a pioneer, creating for herself, and her sex, a new place and rank among educators, or simply as an earnest and skilful worker, rendering eminent service in this field.
That she is fairly entitled to this enminence among the gifted women of our day, a very brief sketch of her career will fully show.
The story itself is a true epic, needing only the simplest recital,--its main facts being more exciting than any fiction we should dare to invent.
Her birth and childhood.
February 23, 1787, is the date of her birth; Samuel and Lydia (
Hinsdale)
Hart, her parents; and a quiet country farmhouse in the parish of
Worthington, in
Berlin, Connecticut, her birthplace.
Born of the best
New England stock, she inherited the noblest qualities of her parentage.
Her father, a man of unusual strength of intellect and will, was self-reliant,
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and well-read, in, at least, the
English literature of the times; and her mother a quiet and practical woman, gifted with native tact and shrewdness, gentle, firm, and efficient.
The home they made for their children was just the home in which gifted children would like to be reared.
And this home, more than anything else determined the character and success of Emma, their sixteenth child, whose record we are now to trace.
Being one of seventeen of her father's children, and one of the ten whom her own mother had borne him, she early found in this large circle one important means of her training.
Let us enter that rural home.
We will take an early evening hour, about mid-winter, and for the date it may be anywhere between her birthday and the year 1804, the date of her first attempt to teach.
The scene we shall witness will best prepare us for what we are to learn of the great work of her future life.
The children have already spent their six hours in their school.
They have severally done up the chores which, in those primitive times, our children were supposed able to do. They had just finished with thanksgiving their relishful supper.
The youngest of them have already dropped away into the sweet sleep of their night's rest.
The huge wood fire glows warmly upon that happy home-circle gathering around it. The older children, all aglow with a joyful interest, finish the little story of their day's fun, and frolic, and work, and successively test their skill in reading aloud a few well-chosen passages from the selectest authors of the day. Then father and mother, no less joyful, add the benediction of their few words of approval, and their timely hints for correction.
And now, for another half hour, or hour, if this be deemed needed, the father and mother-blessed mentors they!--read, in their turn, aloud, and with the skill which long practice has given them, their lessons for
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themselves and their little flock.
Milton chances, it may be, to be the classic now in hand; and, as the magnificent wordpicture opens before them, the very youngest of the group is stirred with fancies and thoughts which shall be to them the germs of thought for many a year to come.
Happy, blessed group, for whose early years such a home is furnished!
What child of gifts could fail of largest fruitage, whose bloom is amid such home sunshine and warmth?
Let us take one more lesson from that
Worthington home; and let the mother of the family be our teacher.
Notice with what womanly ingenuity she makes their slender resources ample for all their home wants, and even for the gratification of a cultivated home taste.
Notice how thoughtfully she provides for the poor family out under the hill, to whom the warm breakfast she sends them, makes the only glad hour of their poverty-stricken home.
And then, when all these home and neighborhood duties are so skilfully discharged, she is not satisfied until she has given her children a lesson of thoughtful kindness to the little birds that are to sing for them.
The refuse wool, which can be of no use to the family, she teaches her little ones how to leave about on the bushes for a hint to the charming warblers to build their fleece-lined nests near to the human home which she would have blest by their sweet singing.
And thus, this admirable home-training, with some two years of study in the village academy, then just opened under a skilful teacher, brought Emma forward to the beginning of her life-work.
She had used her opportunities well.
She had been required to think and plan for herself.
Her powers of observation and her practical judgment had been equally taxed and improved; $nd it is not too much to say, that, in literary attainment, and still more, in ability to learn, she had exceeded her years.
A young lady of fourteen, who, on a cold night in mid-winter, wrapping herself in her cloak,
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with the horse-block for her observatory, could there by moonlight master the lesson of astronomy, which the merry song-singers in the house would leave her no opportunity there to learn, has already some elements of character which are the best pledges of success.
Her experimental career.
She has now just passed her seventeenth birthday.
Through the friendly solicitation of a neighbor, an intelligent lady, who, though more than twice her age, had found in her an equal, she was installed as teacher of one of the village schools.
Her first day's experience here settled many a principle for her future course.
The tact with which she began would well have crowned the end of another teacher's professional career.
With her, a difficulty once encountered was mastered forever.
Discarding the rod as a means of discipline, after the second day's trial, she sought and found her way so directly to the hearts of her pupils; she so skillfully planned their exercises and their sports; she so soon and so thoroughly excited their interest in their school duties, and so made this interest itself the only needed discipline, that her first school soon reported itself in all the neighborhood as a marvel of the times.
She found herself, even thus early in her mere girlhood, crowned with the laurels of her first success.
And now, for three years, in learning and teaching, a part of which time was spent in the excellent schools of
Mrs. Royce and the
Misses Patten, in
Hartford, she was fast preparing herself for entering upon the great work of her life.
And what was of especial value to her was the habit, then established, of prosecuting her own advanced studies while engaged in teaching those already mastered.
Such success soon attracted attention.
The spring of 1807 brings to her calls from three important schools, in
Westfield, Massachusetts;
Middlebury, Vermont; and
Hudson,
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New York.
She accepted the
Westfield call; and as assistant teacher in the excellent academy of that town, she at once won for herself a good name.
But
Miss Hart was not the person to fill long a subordinate place.
Before her first season was over, she had decided to accept the call from Middlebury; and midsummer of the same year finds her at the head of her new school there.
A year of “brilliant success” crowns this third experiment, and settles the question of her fitness for the work she had chosen.
Local jealousies soon spring up, and the school, in spite of her great popularity, suffers; yet even this opposition had its influence in training and disciplining her for a better and stronger work.
While in this struggle, a new call is made upon her.
Dr. John Willard, of Middlebury, a physician of good repute, and a man of solid political merit, had discovered the gifts and graces of the young teacher.
Nor was he long in winning his way to her heart and hand.
They were happily married in August, 1809, when, for a few years, her work of teaching was interrupted.
Pecuniary reverses soon came upon them; and to aid in retrieving their fortune,
Mrs. Willard, in 1814, proposed to return to her chosen profession.
She opened in
Middlebury boarding-school for girls.
But she was also preparing for something more.
She had, even then, detected how low and unworthy were the aims and results of that class of schools.
She was especially struck with the difference between the collegiate course of a young man, and the highest culture which the best schools of the day furnished for young women; and the discovery had been to her a summons to a new work.
With what enthusiasm she entered upon that work!
Carefully reviewing the whole subject of woman's education, she drew up her plan for an enlarged course of study, corresponding,
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as nearly as the different sexes would indicate, with the collegiate course for young men. But she found herself in advance of the age. The leaders in public opinion were not yet ready for such a change.
She fortunately finds her husband in full sympathy with her, and so takes heart again, as she goes on testing its feasibility.
Working daily, ten, twelve, or even fifteen hours in her school duties, she still takes time to master new studies herself that she may in due time carry her pupils through them.
And so, by exploring new fields of science and literature herself; by teaching and drilling her classes, as few classes of young ladies had ever before been drilled; by adding to the old course new studies, and submitting the proficiency of her pupils to the criticism of the most learned men of the day; and by skillfully winning over to her new ideas a few leading minds, she was preparing the way for a new era in woman's education.; making possible the establishment and support of the great collegiate institutions in which women may take rank in all literature with their most scholarly brothers.
Some four years were spent in this preparation.
Meanwhile the unwonted stimulus thus furnished to her own boarding-school had worked greatly in her favor.
The fame of her experiment had gone far and wide; and she was now prepared to take the first steps towards a permanent institution in which her enlarged views and hopes could be more fully realized.
The very location of the institution was a matter of careful thought; and for it, the
State of New York, and of that State, the neighborhood of the head-waters of the
Hudson, was chosen.
Her great work.
And now, in 1818, she is prepared for her work.
She has matured her plans, aid secured strength for their execution.
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She submits her proposals to the large-minded
Governor Clinton, of New York, with a special plea that he would lay the matter in due form, and with the weight of his approval, before the legislature.
The very plan, which in 1814 had begun to shape itself to her eager search, sketched and resketched even to the seventh time, was thus, in 1818, submitted to the judgment of those who make and sustain the institutions of their age. Of the details of that plan we have not space to treat.
It is due, however, to say, that down to this day, nothing has been contributed to our educational literature which exceeds either the wisdom of its details or the eloquence of its plea.
The governor heartily approved the measures which it recommended.
The legislature so far endorsed them as to incorporate an academy at
Waterford, New York, in which the founder might still more clearly show their feasibility.
A still more important end secured by this movement was an acknowledgment, on the part of the legislature, that the academics in the
State, designed for the education of women, were entitled to the same pecuniary aid as institutions of learning for the other sex; and a vote was accordingly passed appropriating their proportion of the literature fund to academies for girls.
We cannot but feel that it was most fortunate for
Mrs. Willard that such a man as
Governor Clinton was ready to second her aims.
And yet, it is very certain, we think, that but for
Mrs. Willard herself, her years of patient and zealous and skilful working, we have no reasons for believing, that for at least another quarter of a century, such concessions would have been made, even to so just a demand.
In the spring of 1819, thus encouraged by the legislature,
DoctorWillard and
Mrs. Willard opened their new school in a rented building in
Waterford, New York.
Their success was such
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as to justify
Governor Linon, in his message of 1820, to allude to it in these terms:--
I cannot omit to call your attention to the Academy for Female Education, which was incorporated last session at Waterford, and which, under tne superintendence of distinguished teachers, has already attained great usefulness and prosperity.
As this is the only attempt ever made in this country to promote the education of the female sex by the patronage of government; as our first and best impressions are derived from maternal affections; and as the elevation of the female character is inseparably connected with happiness at home, and respectability abroad; I trust that you will not be deterred, by commonplace ridicule, from extending your munificence to this meritorious institution.
The citizens of
Troy, attracted by the success of the
Waterford school, proposed to furnish a building with suitable grounds for a larger institution there, if
Mrs. Willard would consent to a removal.
On the expiration of their lease in
Waterford, this proposal from
Troy was accepted, and in May, 1821, they took possession of the Troy property, which since that date has been used for the
Troy Seminary thus established.
The same industry and zeal in her profession, and the same progress in her personal culture marked the course of
Mrs. Willard here as in her former schools.
To the studies she had already added to the ordinary curriculum of the schools for young ladies of that day, she new, after thoroughly mastering them herself, adds the higher mathematics, geometry, including trigonometry, algebra, conic sections, and
Enfield's natural philosophy.
With all this working he still found time for remodelling the science of geography and history; and the results of this painstaking to furnish herself suitable
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implements of her profession we had in
Willard and
Woodbridge's popular Geography in 1821, and
Mrs. Willard's “Temple of Time and Chronographer of
Ancient History.”
This ingenious design received a medal at the
World's Fair in 1851.
The certificate of testimonial, signed by Prince Albert, was no empty tribute to the eminent author, but rather a tribute to the substantial contribution to our aids in learning and teaching what ought to be the most fascinating, yet what had notoriously become the most uninteresting, of all our studies.
In entering upon her enlarged sphere of labors in
Troy,
Mrs. Willard found the gain of her preceding work.
The young ladies whom she had taught, and who had caught something of the inspiration of her aims and zeal, were now already trained for her help.
Her experience and practice had made the work of classification and management easy to her, and her great reputation, of itself, would go far towards making her success a certainty.
She had scarcely settled herself to her work when an unforeseen trial came upon her. Her husband, who, as head of the family, as physician and financial manager of the large household, and as her constant and intelligent adviser, had been a real partner and sharer of her work, after a painful sickness, died in 1825.
On her rested now the great burden which he had borne for her.
Yet, with a resolution more than we look for in woman, she did not hesitate.
Rearranging her school terms, simplifying and methodizing her work, she could even add to her former duties the financial management of her school.
She neither neglected the claim of the humblest pupil under her charge, nor any important item of business in managing the large establishment.
Down to 1838, she thus continued the motive power and main spring of that first of American schools for young women.
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And her reward was not long delayed It came in the triumph of her own school.
It came in the increased stimulus she had given to the cause of woman's education.
It came in the readier facilities accorded to young women in our collegiate institutions; and still more signally in those large institutions expressly for women which her success had made possible.
We can now readily see how much
South Hadley,
Oberlin, Antioch,
Packer, and
Vassar are indebted to her pioneer work.
While achieving this success at home, she had not been unmindful of the claims of woman abroad.
In 1830 she had sought abroad the rest and health which her home duties required, and the relief from her professional work gave her the opportunity to examine the educational condition of women in other lands Her womanly heart was touched with the report which came to her of the degraded condition of woman in classic
Greece, and on her return she organized a society in
Troy to aid in establishing a school in
Athens for educating native teachers.
She prepared a volume of her
European tour, giving the benefit of its profits to the
Greek school.
But the time at length came when it was necessary for her to retire from the pressure of these great burdens upon her. Her son,
Mr. John H. Willard, who had grown up under a training which had specially fitted him for it, and his wife, who for nineteen years had been with her as pupil, or teacher, or vice-principal, now accepted the trust, and relieved her of its further care.
But
Mrs. Willard all these years had been not simply the practical teacher, but also a most unwearied student, and the opportunity is now afforded her of prosecuting her studies with new zeal.
She had been testing
Dr. William Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood, in which the heart is made the motive power, and she soon detected its fallacy.
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She now sets herself to the more careful study of this interesting problem.
With all the enthusiasm of a professional anatomist and physiologist, she explores thoroughly the entire field, and the result was a work on the “Motive Powers which produce the Circulation of the Blood.”
This treatise, published in 1846, arrested the attention of the medical faculty, and won for its author the reputation of a successful discoverer.
At the same time these investigations were going on, her feelings became deeply interested in the public schools of her native State.
While on a visit to
Berlin, she was asked to furnish her views on the subject of common-school education, to be submitted to the citizens of her native town assembled in an educational meeting.
The paper she submitted showed so much wisdom, and indicated so true an interest in the common schools, that the parish, by vote, put their schools for the year under her care.
Her success in managing them was a marvel, and the schools, thus skilfully superintended, were referred to by
Mr. Barnard, then as now, a prince among educators, as witnesses to what skilful management will do for schools.
And so, by study and writing, even to twelve and fourteen hours daily; by stirring up educators and schools to more skilful and earnest working, both in
Connecticut and New York; by suggesting new plans and methods of teaching; by projecting normal schools before the day of normal schools had come,--this woman, thoroughly alive to all that promised to advance her race, used more diligently her years of rest than most workers do the hours of their busiest working.
And if the question is raised, how could one with only a woman's strength sustain such efforts, the answer will only lead us to still another field of her unwearied and painstaking labor.
She worked for it. She studied carefully the condition and wants of her physical nature, and provided for
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both.
She trained even her muscles to their healthful and self-sustaining work.
She wishes a clear, vigorous, lifeful brain, and she uses the only methods she could discover that promised it. See her, early in the morning, at her honest, earnest, muscular work.
And when she has entered upon the mental labor of the day, see her, at the end of each two hours through the day, resting her toiling brain by vigorous physical exercise, until the equilibrium is restored.
You need not fear for her, as she drops the sash of her study window, and facing the fresh cold breeze stands there exercising the muscles of her chest until her lungs have been satisfied with their needed food, and her blood freshly pours its health-tides throughout her now reinvigorated frame.
She has now worked her whole system up to working trim, and you need not wonder if, when she seats herself at her papers, she should record a thought or a theory which shall henceforth change and rule the thoughts and theories of men. It is really no marvel that one with such a physical and mental constitution as she inherited, with such skilful training as her very necessities had imposed on her younger life, and with the care which her maturer years had exercised over both her body and brain, should at fifty years of age give to the world her Troy Seminary; at sixty, her original demonstration on the “Motive powers in the circulation of the blood;” at sixty two, her treatise on “Respiration and its effects;” and at sixty-five, a work on astronomy, which even the masters in the science were ready to endorse.
It is no marvel, that, after having had an important part in the training of more than five thousand young ladies, she still found .time and strength to become the teacher of the teachers of men. It is no marvel that at fifty-eight she could, in a journey of eight thousand miles, traverse a continent, rejoicing everywhere equally in the joy of her pupils and in the prosperity of the schools for young ladies which her influence had contributed
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to found; nor that at sixty-seven she could cross the ocean, and mingle in the exercises and enjoy the honors of the
World's Educational Convention, and thence make the tour of
France,
Switzerland,
Germany, and
Belgium tributary still to her zeal for observation and learning.
But not alone in these literary and educational works has
Mrs. Willard used her great powers.
Her religious character has been also as carefully educated, and an effective Christian culture has been a constant aim and triumph in her work.
Uniting with the Episcopal church in
Burlington, she has ever since been a devout and worthy communicant.
In all her study and work, her appeal has been to God's word for her standard and law. She spoke with great deliberation in her weighty charge to those whom she would commission with the solemn trust of teachers, when she said to them, in all the seriousness of her earnest convictions: “So far, however, from depending on set times for the whole discharge of the duty of training the young to piety and virtue, you are, during all your exercises, to regard it as the grand object of your labors.”
Of her active and wide-reaching benevolence the record has been a private one.
Yet many and timely have been her benefactions which the angel has recorded on high.
We know this much, that scores of the young women whom she has aided to secure the education, which, without such aid, they could not have secured, are still grateful for her quick sympathies and generous aid. It is safe to say that twenty thousand dollars would not now make
Mrs. Willard's exchequer good for these offerings to the cause of woman's education.
But we cannot linger longer on these lessons of her useful and honored life.
Mrs. Willard is still living, and as we might, from all we have learned of her former life, expect, her latest years are not without their rich and worthy fruits.
The serene dignity of age well befits now the form which
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forty years ago was radiant with womanly beauty.
Under the shadow in her own dear seminary, she can but rejoice in this proud monument of her life.
Here, surrounded with the trophies of her life-work, embosomed in the love of those whose young affections she drew to herself, and cheered by that precious religious hope which has purified her life, long may she yet enjoy with us the rewards of her long life, so nobly and worthily spent for her sex and race I
Hardly less positive need we be in assigning the second place on our list of educational pioneers to the excellent and popular principal of the
Ladies' Department of Oberlin College.
Since 1835, she has held, in this Western institution, a place of great responsibility, and during all those years she has shown herself every way worthy the confidence she has inspired.
True she has never presumed to claim for herself any such position; yet for this very reason she is all the worthier of it. True she may not have arrested the gaze of the world, like many another woman whose life has been a glittering show, yet we shall find her to be one of those quiet and silent forces, which are noiselessly working out the most useful and even the grandest problems of the age and race.
Who has not noticed how men and women of exceedingly defective character, and even of very limited ability, are often lifted, in spite of themselves, into notoriety, and, for a while at least, enjoy a reputation for goodness and power, for which the unthinking world do not fail to honor them?
Or who has failed to see how others, of great native
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ability and of rarest excellence of character, have been so retiring and modest, or so overshadowed by showier presumers, as scarcely during their lifetime to attract our attention?
Has not noisy and blaring pretence always seemed at least to win its way more readily than highest merit?--even as the lightning's flash is more sure of winning your attention than the most genial sunbeam of the loveliest morning.
And, still, who has not also seen how certainly
Providence at length reverses all this seeming experience of life?
He lifts the lowliest to the loftiest place.
He makes the weakest the strongest.
He confounds what men call wisdom, by establishing what they have pronounced folly.
He, at length, brings worthy merit out of its obscurity into the clearest light; and, over the dazzle and glory of all were gilded radiance, sooner or later spreads the pall which covers all its empty shams.
And when this rectification comes, who does not see how real was the merit before undiscovered, and how exceedingly thin and worthless the gilding which so dazzled the eye?
Possibly the sketch we here attempt may justify these reflections.
We shall have to speak of a character which has never courted the world's notice, yet one to which the world is certainly under no small obligation.
With no brilliant display of personal charms, no parade of talents, no exciting incidents to kindle to an impassioned glow our admiration, we shall still find, at every step in our review, ample reason for the place we have assigned to one of the world's true and faithful and successful workers.
As a pioneer in establishing and sustaining the fullest curriculum of studies for woman yet reached, embracing a mental discipline as severe and thorough as that which has been required of young men,especially, as pioneer in a movement which has done so much towards supplying our broad West with their great and efficient institutions for the advanced culture of woman,--she certainly deserves well of her sex and her race.
Very competent
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authority,
Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, of
Boston, has well characterized her fitness for the post of lady principal at
Oberlin.
“The splendid endowment of Vassar College,” she says, “could not give to
Oberlin a woman better suited to this purpose than
Mrs. Dascomb.”
Let us, then, briefly trace the educational career of this gifted and successful woman.
We must do this, in full knowledge of two special hindrances to our attempt,--the extreme modesty of
Mrs. Dascomb's character, which shrinks sensitively from all public exhibition and criticism ; and the fact that her entire educational life has been so intimately associated with that of so many other educators, so that it may be difficult to decide of any particular result, how much of it is due to her agency, or what part of it she should share with her associates.
Marianne Parker, a child of Christian parents, of good
New England stock, which itself was of best English puritan blood, was born in
Dunbarton, N. H., in 1810.
She was the seventh of eight children, five daughters and three sons, whom her mother,
Martha Tenney, had borne to her father,
William Parker.
At the early age of four she became fatherless; and with a large family of children, and but a small patrimony, was left to such care and culture as her mother, who was an excellent woman, could supply.
The children were therefore, of necessity, early taught the lessons of economy and mutual helpfulness.
The elder members of the family cheerfully fitted themselves to aid their mother in caring for the younger; and these in their turn were trained in habits of thoughtful and helpful industry.
It was thus that that interesting group were best disciplined and trained to lives of great usefulness.
Those days of preparation were well and wisely spent.
The physical and social culture then furnished was of incalculable value to them all. The necessities which imposed such burdens may have been trying to
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both the mother and her young charge; but its fruits in after years even until now have proved an exceeding reward.
We cannot wonder when, in later years, we find how all of that group have worked themselves up into positions of honored usefulness, such as only earnest and intelligent workers can fill.
How like the story of how many
New England families of fifty years ago it reads I
Three of the sisters in due time became the wives of three ministers, and the fourth that of a professional and useful teacher.
Of the brothers, the eldest, after graduating at college, became a successful teacher; the second, on whom the care of the home and widowed mother fell, has done good service in the church and world; and the third is still, as for the last quarter of a century, an approved minister of
Christ.
A whole family thus given to the cause of learning and religion is just the source from which we might expect a pioneer and leader, or at any rate an efficient promoter, of some needed movement in education or in ethics.
And such a character we believe we have in the subject of this sketch.
From the first she gave indications of possessing large native ability.
To her natural inquisitiveness was added clear and quick perception, with a corresponding fulness of the reasoning faculty; and so, under the stimulus of the home and early school culture which she enjoyed, she made rapid progress in acquiring knowledge.
Nor was she deficient in such social and affectional qualities as are needed to constitute one the best and most serviceable of friends; or to give one the firmest hold on the confidence and affections of others, and so the most efficient power for good or evil over them.
In early girlhood she is reported to us as “one of the best of playmates,” and in maturer years we find her as sympathetic and affectionate and persuasive as then; while to these merely companionable qualities she has added the power and authority of a dignified and matronly grace.
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Her early school education was much like that of the majority of girls of that day. Specially favorable to her progress was the influence over her of
Miss Chase, a sister of our present
Chief Justice Chase, who was in her thirteenth year her teacher; and also that of her brother-in-law,
Rev. Thomas Tenney, who had charge of the Hampton Academy.
After leaving the Hampton Academy, she prosecuted her education in various schools as pupil or teacher, until, anxious to lay deeper and broader foundations for what she was coming to look upon as her future profession,--teaching,--she entered the
Ipswich Academy, then in charge of
Miss Grant, one of the ablest of our lady teachers of that day. Here she graduated in 1833, ranking high in her class, and ready for any good service in almost any field of woman's work which might open before her. Nor had she long to wait.
She entered with enthusiasm the first field open to her,--a school in
Boscawen, New Hampshire, and was there making full proof of the wisdom of her choice of pursuits, when another call was made upon her.
Dr. James Dascomb, a young physician, well fitted for his profession,--a Christian gentleman, longing to find the field in which he might do best service for his race,--had then just offered himself to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, as a missionary physician to some heathen field.
While looking forward to such service, he became acquainted with
Miss Parker.
He was not long in detecting, in the spirit and character of the young and ardent teacher, the qualities which would be most fitting for one who should be his help-meet in such a life-work.
Nor was she long in reciprocating his confidence and affection.
Pending his negotiation with the American Board,
Providence was preparing for him another field and service.
A movement had been started to establish at the
West a school of collegiate rank for both sexes, in which, by manual labor,
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the students could at once promote their health and contribute towards their support.
In the forests of
Northern Ohio a site had been found for the attempt, and the earnest and large.
hearted men who had projected the movement commenced their work, naming both the institution and the town, of which it was to be the beginning and life, from
Oberlin, the
Christian pastor and teacher, and civilizer of the rude peasantry of the
Ban de la
Roche, in Switzerland.
In this novel movement, started in the interests of literature, religion, and humanity, the young physician was now invited to take part; and, after a consultation with
Miss Parker, they mutually and heartily accepted the post.
Resigning the school she had just opened in
Canajoharie, New York, into other hands,
Miss Parker was married in the spring of 1834; and with her husband entered at once upon the work which has never yet been intermitted.
For thirty-four years they have wrought together on that field, apparently so forbidding,--the husband rising step by step in scholarship and professional popularity, until now, and the wife to a post of responsibility and usefulness, second, perhaps, to none in the country, which woman has been called to fill.
They have lived to see the old forest give way to an institution which more than any other in the
West has made itself a power among the noblest movements of the age.
On connecting herself with the young college,
Mrs. Dascomb was appointed the principal of the ladies' department.
Her strength then proving unequal to the burden, at the end of the year she resigned, not, however, without having made full proof of her many admirable qualifications for the post.
She was immediately transferred to the
Ladies' Board of Managers, where, for years, her good sense was of incalculable service to the board.
In 1852 she was urged to resume the post of principal of the ladies' department, and again, though hesitatingly, she accepted the charge.
In this post
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she has remained until now. Her office, calling as it does for large executive and administrative ability, has been most worthily and acceptably filled.
The trustees of the college are unanimous in their admiration of her signal success.
They cheerfully accept her counsel, in all matters relating to her department, as law; and they never find her counsels or her plans to fail.
Under her judicious management, and, owing to this perhaps as much as to any one agency, the college at
Oberlin has practically shown the safety and wisdom of educating, even through the college course, the two sexes together.
It has, also, proved the ability of woman to prosecute creditably all the studies of the college course, and to compete successfully with men in any field of literature.
But precisely how much of the success at
Oberlin has been due to any one of the agencies employed, it may be difficult to decide.
There have been in the work some of the ablest men our country has produced.
Certainly, no more earnest workers have anywhere used to the utmost all their resources to sustain and build up any institution of the age. The enterprise, itself, was hopeless to any but a strong faith and resolute heart.
And they who took the work in hand worked on together with good heart and hope.
Its three presidents —
Mahan,
Finney, and
Fairchild — have all done the work of strong and fearless men. Their associates in the Faculty, of their own sex, have worked with them, under the glow and inspiration of the same enthusiasm.
Nor could the instituion have been established and sustained without such agency.
With it,
Oberlin has attained a good rank among the literary institutions of the land.
But for the successful attainment of its special aim, that of the co-education of the two sexes, even through the entire college course, another style of educational agency was needed.
If young women were to be admitted and carried through the course, the presence of woman would be indispensable
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in the faculty.
Her intelligence and tact, her sympathy and taste, and her quick sense of social proprieties would all be a necessity.
Her control and authority would reach and regulate, as man's could not, these new college relations.
Especially also, was the aid of woman needed, to secure another leading idea of the Oberlin movement.
The founders wished to organize a community, as well as establish a college,--a community in thorough sympathy with their own Christian work.
The town itself was to be the home for their college, and its families were to feel themselves, in some sort, identified with the aims and interests of the college.
It must be a community in which young men and women could be Christianly educated, and from whose nurture they should be thoroughly prepared to go forth to their own earnestly aggressive Christian work.
But to aid in organizing such a community, the presence and culture and grace of Christian women would be requisite.
Most fortunate, was it, then, that, when such a movement was projected, this needed agency was not wanting.
To make no mention of other gifted Christian women, who were counted worthy to engage in such a work,--though such names as those of
Mrs. Shipherd, and
Mahan, and
Finney, and
Cowles, may well claim no small share in this noble enterprise,--it was peculiarly providential that such a woman as
Mrs. Dascomb was then ready, both in literary attainment, and in every most needed social quality, to give herself to the work.
And it is not saying too much that she was ready also for the consecration.
Without reservation she entered the service, which, with no abatement of zeal, she has pursued and honored until now.
Nor is it claiming too much to say that her reward has been great.
Of about five hundred young ladies who are annually under her instruction or influence, very few can be
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found ho do not regard her with a feeling akin to filial affection.
Of the thousands who have gone out from
Oberlin, of both sexes, we have but one uniform testimony to the high esteem with which they regard her. Her associates in the work tell us the same story of their dependence upon her, and their great indebtedness to her influence.
Nor is it difficult to detect the secret of her power.
It lies both in her temperament and character.
She is lifeful and cheerful.
She shows good sense and judgment.
She abounds in hopefulness, which gives her confidence and courage.
She has no misgivings lest duty should prove inexpedient; and so her faith in the results of duty never fails her. She is self-sacrificing,--doing cheerfully for others, what she would gladly be excused from doing on her own account.
She is conscientious, anxious only to do the right thing herself, and solicitous only to aid others in seeing what is right, and doing it. One of the most sensitively gentle of women, she has still the firmest strength of will, holding herself and holding others, as by inevitable law, to truth and duty.
She could not compromise principle, though a world were to be won. With her the first question and the last is, not, Will it pay?
not, Is it fashionable?
not, Will it please the world?
but, Is it right?
She has the courage to face sneers and danger even, if in the path of duty.
In the day when to befriend a fugitive negro was to arouse a storm of popular rage and vengeance, she never hesitated to recognize the fugitive's claim.
She acknowledged no misnamed patriotism, which required her to prove faithless to the plain call of humanity.
Higher than all human enactments, she held and holds the claims and the law of the only God.
And so, by her gentle and patient kindness; by her fervent zeal in duty; by her disinterested love and service for others; by her uncompromising devotion to what is true and right,--she has made for herself a place of power in the community
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where she has lived, and especially in the hearts and minds she has aided in educating for the service of the church and world.
And still, as for so many years, she is prosecuting the same good work, with the same success.
Without denying the claims of her own family and home,--in which she has reared to womanhood the two adopted, the only children given to her to rear,--she is still laboriously employed in the duties of her great charge at the college.
In her daily work of personal interview and consultation with pupils and teachers, and the matrons of the homes in which the pupils reside; in assigning daily exercises and studies; in familiar lectures to the young ladies on all topics, outside of the general course of instruction in the classes, on which they need instruction and advice,--
Mrs. Dascomb is still adding to the reputation she has already won, as a woman of eminent ability and service.
But, pre-eminently, her best record is yet to be written.
It must be traced in the career of the many gifted young women whom she has aided in fitting for service.
good and great, like her own. Their success, when its causes are fully known, will add new lustre to the crown, which she now so unconsciously wears.
