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Read Hannah Foster, The Boarding School |
Beginning in colonial times, parents could send their daughters to the home of a widow or unmarried woman who would instruct the young ladies in arts, manners, and literature. These home-based schools had some similarities to the apprentice system and also to the practice of young ladies residing with female relatives to enlarge their experience and skills. Boarding school teachers instructed students in plain and fancy needlework, fine manners, and fine literature. Matrons often hired tutors to teach special subjects like French and dance for additional fees. In colonial days, boarding schools appeared in wealthy towns like Boston and Newport, but after Independence, these schools also appeared in the quickly growing manufacturing towns of New England. 1 Boarding school teachers, like private tutors, were entrepreneurs; as such, they understood that a good reputation was essential to attract students. Women relied on word of mouth and rarely advertised in newspapers. Because of this, it is difficult to know how many women taught, how long they kept schools, or the number of students they accepted. Personal qualities like fine manners were also important qualities in a teacher of older girls. Some women taught exquisite drawing, painting, music, and fancy needlework. These artistic accomplishments were naturally displayed by their students, spreading the reputation of the teacher. This may, in part, have been responsible for the persistence of art, music and needlework in the female curriculum. | |
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The author of this book, Hannah Foster, was a successful novelist when she wrote the Boarding School. She chose the novel genre as a vehicle to promote her ideas about women's education. By 1798, many men had written essays and sermons about female education in the new American republic, but women had almost no cultural authority to do the same. In order to propagate her ideas, Foster wrote this novel to which she appended a series of letters that expands upon her ideals of female education. Thus, she did Foster did not cross the boundaries of polite femininity, and honed her ability and that of her students to convey their ideas with charm rather than strength and logic. The boarding school she describes taught students to use these charms even as Foster extended women's knowledge and intellect. Thus, like much cultural change, Foster's new ideas were enunciated in the language and gendered framework of old ideas. Throughout the next century, as women trained their minds in logic and science, they were less willing to confine their ideas within the boundaries of polite femininity.2 |
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Priscilla Wakefield, |
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