USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 78
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645
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.
Of the education of the women of the first generation we have no certain information ; but from the character of the men who shaped the policy and institutions of Connecticut, and of the families to which their wives belonged, and from the character and influence of the first generation reared in their early homes, we are safe in placing the women of Hartford as high in intelligence, virtue, and accomplishments as those of any New England community. We are obliged to confess we have no certain evidence of the existence of any very good schools which they could have attended in the limits of Hartford till near the beginning of the present century. It is certain that from the best public school, which always had a man of grammar-school and college training as its teacher, they were excluded down to within forty years. The dame schools and the district schools were always open to girls ; and with the ability to read, and access to good books, sen- sible conversation, and the responsibilities of the family, the bright- est of the sex will appear better in society than the average man, 110 matter what may have been his school privileges. At the opening of this century Hartford society had women of great general intelli- gence, refined manners, and large personal influence, - women who had been educated in Dr. Dwight's school at Green Farms; at the Moravian Seminary at Bethlehem; at Mrs. Graham's school at New York ; at the Tisdale School at Lebanon ; Mrs. Rowson's academy at Boston ; and Miss Pierce's school at Litchfield ; and many more who had been educated in clergymen's families, and by reading good books and doing good work in training their own families at home. Of a few, strictly speaking, girls' schools and female seminaries which belong to the first quarter of the present century we will write briefly.
The school which attracted most attention and educated a large number of girls, before 1820, was established by Mrs. Lydia Bull Royse, about 1800. She was born in Hartford, Oet. 31, 1772, a lineal descendant of Captain Thomas Bull, who settled here in 1636, and was married to John Royse (b. in 1772), Oct. 27, 1792. Their married life was spent in New York, Richmond, and Newbern ; and after his death, which occurred in 1798, Mrs. Royse returned to Hartford, and in the year following opened a school for young ladies, -day scholars and boarders. Of this school we have a very graphie sketch in a letter from Rev. Prof. J. J. McCook, of Trinity College, who married a grand- daughter of Mrs. Royse, and whose mother, Mrs. Eliza Lydia Sheldon, carried on the school after Mrs. Royse retired from it in 1818.
" While making a call upon Miss Rockwell, who lives in one of the oldest of the old houses in East Windsor Hill, I noticed upon the wall an 'Aurora,' done in water-colors and of a style and proportions which at once recalled one in my wife's possession, - the work of her grandmother, Mrs. Lydia Royse. Upon inquiry, I found that the resemblance was not accidental. Miss Rockwell's elder sister, now long since dead, had been a pupil in Mrs. Royse's school more than sixty years before. From Miss Rockwell I learned the following, which, though by no means explicit or full, yet is all that I was able to get from her of the matters suggested by you for my researches.
" After learning all that the academy on the hill could teach them, the best families, it seems, were accustomed to send their daughters to Mrs. Royse's, in Hartford, for a finishing course. Miss Rockwell's sister was sent just as the school was about to break up, in 1817. But she recalled the names of several
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
of her girl-friends, - Ann Watson, Frances and Maria Bissell, Helen and Ursula Wolcott, - names still well known in the locality, one of them historical, who were there as early as 1810. One of these, Miss Maria Bissell, she remembers, came in one day, and said, 'Now look, Henrietta, and I will show you how Madame Javet dances ;' and thereupon capered about the room, executing some of those grandes manœuvres which must have made the dancing of the period such a fearful and wonderful sight. This Madame Javet, then, was one of the teachers in Mrs. Royse's school, and her name suggests what I have heard from my cousin, Miss Sheldon, - Mrs. Royse's granddaughter, - that she had under- stood that there were among the teachers members of the families of certain French émigrés driven from their country by the events of the Revolution, and liere, as in every country to which they came, finding in teaching a resource when all other resources had failed. The ‘accomplishments,' which then made a large part of female education, when education was given at all, were naturally confided to them. Not all the accomplishments, however ; for Mrs. Royse her- self taught drawing, painting, and needlework. The walls of the Rockwell parlor are covered with paintings done under her instruction. In addition to the sub- ject above alluded to, I observed a ' Ruth and Naomi,' of the usual sentimental type; a ' Cybele' driving a team of lions hitched to a gorgeous chariot, herself more gorgeous still, the fierce grin of the lions in striking contrast to their lamb- like and somewhat wooden attitude, - Cupid sits in front and holds the reins ; the ' Arch of Titus,' a fair likeness ; finally, the 'Romps,' where a lot of oddly apparelled, old-fashioned looking little girls are surprised in the midst of a jolli- fication by their school-mistress, the very frills of whose monstrous cap seem to fling out their folds in horror at the enormity they are forced to witness. In the foreground is the ringleader of the malefactors, standing demurely by the side of an overturned writing-table, her hands and apron all covered with ink- stains, of which the floor, too, has received a plentiful share. Miss Ursula Wolcott, upon whom I called after leaving Miss Rockwell, showed me, with mild pride, a piece that she had done at the school. It is the 'Parting of Hector and Andromache,' with the customary accompaniments of tents, warriors, and weeping Astyanax. This is in needlework, very beautifully done ; only the faces are painted in. Work of this latter kind seems to have been done by Mrs. Royse's own hand, as a charge in one of Miss Wolcott's bills seems to show. This bill, written in a beautiful hand, I transcribe. It will give you definite enlightenment on certain points supposed to be of capital importance, - at least, by that one of the respected parents upon whom commonly falls the duty of auditing and liquidating such accounts :
"'MAJOR WOOLCOTT To MRS. ROYSE, DR.
For Miss Ursula Woolcott - Tuition 14 weeks . $7.62
Drawing Picture, 6/ - Stationery, 3/9 - Medicine, 3/ 2.123
30 & ¿ Silks @ 10109, 18/2-33 yds. Chenille @ 4}d., 12/4 5.09
14.83
Painting Picture included 5.50
Board, 12 weeks, @ 13/6 .
27
41.83 5.50
47.33
Rec'd Payment, LYDIA ROYSE.
HARTFORD, April 8th, 1813.'
" The bill, now yellow with age, is folded carefully for filing, and on the back is written, no doubt in the Major's hand, ' Miss Royse Bill for Suley.'
" She is still 'Miss Suley.' And, though now sixty-six years distant from
647
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.
her girlhood, has not lost the gentle, agreeable manners, the cultivation of which formed, no doubt, one of the most important items in the school curriculum.
"The old lady could remember but little concerning the course of instruction, except the painting and needlework, her memory on the subject had not been roused for so many, many years. Miss Rockwell, not having attended the school, knew nothing definitely on this point. She only supposed that they taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, with French, dancing, painting, and needlework ; and she remembered specifically that Mrs. Royse's school was 'far ahead of the Misses Pattens.' From which it is apparent that rivalries and emulations may have existed even at that remote period to agitate if not disturb the reputed tranquillity of educational circles.
" Its celebrity, in fact, seems to have been such that pupils were drawn to it from a considerable distance. Miss Rockwell mentioned the names of several from other States than Connecticut ; and, since the room for boarders was always limited, the majority of these pupils appear to have occupied quarters in the town, and to have attended the classes along with the day scholars. Among these outside pupils of Mrs. Royse was Mrs. Willard (Emma Hart, of Berlin), since become so eminent.
" Whether there was any religious instruction given, or, if there were, what was its character, I cannot ascertain. In one school that I have heard of, ten or fifteen years later, every girl was required to 'learn her own catechism' and to recite it to the teacher. The result of this was that the brightest of them learned the whole list, - their own by special application, those of the others by hearing them recited. What the effect of this wide comprehensiveness was upon the theological faculties of the young misses I have never been told ; but, at all events, here was one of the earliest attempts that I have noticed at the realization of that ideal of the present day, - a ' purely undenominational school.' I hardly think this feature could have been copied from anything in Mrs. Royse's school ; but that her influence over her pupils was distinctly religious I can scarcely doubt, for she was a devout member of the Episcopal Church.
"The locality of the school was, for one part of the time, in a building still standing on the corner of Main and Belden streets ; the rest of the time in the old Whitman House on Main Street, where College Street (Capitol Avenue) now joins it. It was on this latter spot when Miss Rockwell attended it.
" The immediate cause of its suspension, after its honorable career of not far from twenty years, seems to have been the death of Mrs. Royse's son-in-law, Mr. George Sheldon, one of Hartford's earliest book-publishers, the partner of ' Peter Parley,' and from all accounts an accomplished and most estimable per- son. 'After his death,' Miss Rockwell told me, she 'never saw Mrs. Royse or Mrs. Sheldon smile.'
" Later on, Mrs. Sheldon opened a school, being associated with Mrs. Grosve- nor in its management. Concerning it I have little knowledge. It was in existence in 1824. . . . Those who remember Mrs. Grosvenor, her associate, will easily believe that the school, under such direction, must have been a thoroughly good one, and powerfully influential upon the characters as well as the intellects of its pupils, some of whom still survive."
Lydia Maria Huntley, better known to this generation, and in Amer- ican literature by numerous publications, as L. H. S. (Lydia Huntley Sigourney), was born in Norwich in 1791, and came to Hartford in 1811 "to perfect her education at two of the best seminaries then exist- ing, by devoting herself to the accomplishments of drawing, painting in water-colors, embroideries of various kinds, filigree, and other things too tedious to mention." On her return to Norwich she opened a seminary for young ladies in connection with Miss Nancy Maria Hyde, who died in
648
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
1814. Their enterprise was successful ; so much so, that Miss Huntley was invited by Mr. Daniel Wadsworth to open a select school for young ladies here, which she did in 1815, the number being limited at first to fifteen, and after the first year to twenty-five. In a chapter entitled " Educational Remembrances," in her "Letters of Life," published in 1866, Mrs. Sigourney gives a pleasing account of the studies and meth- ods of her school ; and in an earlier work entitled " My Pupils," she has given some very affectionate notices of her scholars. The instruction was thorough in the elementary branches of reading, arithmetic (in- cluding accounts), penmanship, composition, and history. A knowledge of grammar was given by frequent and careful practice (oral and writ- ten) in composition, and the use of Lindley Murray's Exercises, - which she characterizes as " the best work of the kind thien extant." Much attention was paid to deportment and self-regulation, and to fre- quent and pleasant out-of-door festivals. This school was much prized by our best educated families till 1819, when Miss Huntley was mar- ried to one of our well-known merchants, Mr. Charles Sigourney. Mrs. Sigourney ever after took an active interest in all schools and educational movements, and was one of the founders and directors of the first institution (at Philadelphia) for the medical education of women in the United States.
In 1819, and for several years after, Dr. Lyman Strong, a college graduate, taught a select school for young ladies, which one of his pu- pils (Miss Caroline Lloyd, now -1886 - living at the age of eighty-five) designates as the school of the most thorough instruction and even pleasant discipline of all she attended.
Early in 1823, Catherine E. Beecher, of Litchfield, with her sister Mary (Mrs. Thomas C. Perkins), opened a school for young ladies in a small room over a store on Asylum Street, with an attendance of seven pupils. In the autumn of the same year it was announced in the " Cou- rant " that " Misses C. and M. Beecher will commence their winter term on the 20th of November. No scholar under twelve years of age need apply, and none will be received for less than one quarter. Price of Tuition, $6. Drawing, $2. It is particularly requested that those who contemplate attending the first quarter should commence at the beginning of the term." This advertisement is the germ of the Hart- ford Female Seminary. The attendance rapidly increased from seven to one hundred, as the teachers were sisters of the principal of the Grammar School, and daughters of one of the most eminent divines in Connecticut. The principal, Miss C. E. Beecher, soon saw the hopeless- ness of realizing any high ideal of female education without more class- rooms with better equipments, and without more assistants, and better division of labor in the work of instruction and management. By per- sistent appeals to the mothers of her pupils she succeeded in bringing fifty public-spirited citizens of the town into an organization for the erection and equipment of such a building as she wished, which was erected in 1827, and the association was incorporated in the same year, under the title of the Hartford Female Seminary.
The building was opened in 1827 by an address to the people on Female Education by Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, who was always inter- ested in its promotion, and for a period gave instruction in the Semi- nary in Composition and Moral Philosophy. But the master spirit was
649
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.
Miss Catherine Beecher. In this new structure (still standing and oc- cupied for its original purpose), with its study-hall for one hundred and fifty pupils, lecture-room, and six recitation-rooms, Miss Beecher strove to realize her idea of female education, without any knowledge of what Mrs. Willard was doing at Waterford and Troy, or Miss Grant and Miss Lyon at Ipswich ; and until her health broke down under her manifold duties as principal, she maintained an institution not inferior to any in the country, and which became the model after which many oth- ers were instituted, and attained the highest reputation. Her own views of education were embodied in a paper which was printed in 1829, in a pamphlet entitled " Suggestions respecting Improvements in Education, presented to the Trustees of the Hartford Female Seminary, and pub- lished at their Request," which had an extensive circulation, and influ- enced very widely and favorably the development of female education.
Miss Beecher's health broke down under her many labors, but her system was carried out by her assistants in similar institutions in different parts of the country ; namely, by Miss Mary Dutton, in the " Grove Seminary " at New Haven ; by Miss Frances Strong, in the " Huntsville Female Seminary " at Alabama ; by Miss Julia Hawks (Mrs. Gardell), first at Springfield and afterward in Philadelphia.
Since its opening in 1827 the Seminary has been under the charge of the following principals : Miss C. E. Beecher, 1827-1833 ; John P. Brace, 1833-1845 ; Helen A. Swift, 1846 ; Mary M. Parker, 1847 ; Maria Jewell, 1848; Frances A. Strong, 1850-1851; An Maria Crocker, 1855-1856; Miss N. S. Ranney, 1858-1860 ; Mr. and Mrs. M. S. Crosby, 1861-1869 ; William T. Gage, 1870-1882; M. Louise Bacon, 1883-1886.
In May, 1827, Mrs. Kinneer opened a boarding-school for young ladies in the then well-known Hart house, on the corner of Arch and Prospect streets, which had before been occupied for a time by Mr. Charles Sigourney before he built on Lord's Hill the house now owned and occupied by Mr. Julius Catlin. Mrs. Kinneer came with five years of successful experience in conducting a young ladies' seminary in Derby. In her announcement she pledges herself to give the utmost attention to the morals and behavior of her pupils ; and that no efforts will be spared to render her school in all respects as perfect as any similar institution in the State. The situation of her school in the neighborhood of Washington College will enable her to receive any desirable assistance in several branches of instruction from gentlemen connected with that institution. Those pupils who may wish to study French will find it advantageous to board in her family, where that lan- guage is spoken. She hopes that her experience in teaching will recom- mend her school to a share of public notice, and for the satisfaction of those who may wish to make further inquiries, the following gen- tlemen are referred to : Rt. Rev. Bishop Brownell, Professors Doane and Humphreys, the Rev's N. S. Wheaton, H. Croswell, J. M. Gar- field, D. Burhans, R. Sherwood, S. Jewett, S. Gilbert, G. B. Andrews, T. Strong (Greenfield, Mass.), General Lee (Granville, N. Y.), Mr. Sheldon Smith (Newark, N. J.), and Mr. Richard M. White (New York). "Price of tuition in Rhetoric, Latin, Composition, Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Belles Lettres, etc., $8 per term of 16 weeks ; Music, $12; Painting, $5 ; Latin, $8; French, $8 ; Board may be had in the family of the Instructress on the most reasonable terms."
650
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
The pupils of this school, not only from the town, but from other parts of the State, and from other States, were mainly from families in connection with the Episcopal Church. It originated in the same move- ment which led to the charter of the Hartford Academy in 1819 and its establishment in 1829, and of Washington College in 1823, - a de- sire of many families of the State, not in connection or sympathy with the " Standing Order " in politics or religion, to have the advantages of education in schools under teachers of the same religious profession. When Mrs. Kinneer retired from the field, her place was filled by the Misses Draper (Julia, Catharine, and Ella), who in 1843 opened a young ladies' seminary under the same religions auspiees, at 26 Trum- bull Street, which was continued till 1850, after the opening of the High School in 1847.
In 1836 the Misses Watson (Elizabeth, Sarah, and Mary) opened a select school for boarding and day pupils at their old home (264 Main Street), which gave to a small number of young ladies a very thorough education. They were assisted in special subjects by other local teachers and professors.
T. W. T. Curtis, on resigning his position in the High School in 1858, opened a select school for young ladies, which was advertised as a day and boarding school, in the Brinley house, on Asylum Street, which had a good attendance from the town and from abroad.
In 1873 the Seminary of Mount St. Joseph was instituted by Rt. Rev. F. P. McFarland, as a normal or training school, in which the young ladies of his diocese might perfeet themselves in the highest branches of a liberal education, hallowed by religion. It occupies a lovely, elevated, and healthful site, on the finest avenue in Hartford. The Seminary building possesses much architectural beauty as well as massiveness, and meets the wants of a first-class boarding-school. It is thoroughly ventilated, heated by steam, lighted by gas, and furnished throughout with all the modern improvements. The course of study embraces the English, French, Latin, and German languages, with a thorough course of mathematies, to which special attention is paid ; vocal and instrumental music, including the harp, piano, guitar, and organ ; drawing ; plain and ornamental needlework ; embroidery in gold, chenille, silks, etc. ; artificial flowers in wax, muslin, etc.
The great event in female education in Hartford and in Connectieut was the opening of the Public High School for young ladies as well as for young men, - on the same terms of admission and with equal privi- leges in the most advanced subjects and methods in (English, French, German, Latin, and Greek) languages and science. From 1847 to 1885, out of a total of 1203 graduates, 650 were girls ; out of an attendance of 547 in 1885, 261 were girls, with about an equal number of cach sex in the classical and the English department.
The State Normal School1 at New Britain, organized and opened for the reception of pupil-teachers in May, 1850, was the outcome of many efforts and suggestions extending back nearly a half-century. In the discussions in town-meetings, the press, and the legislature on the ap- propriation of the capital and income of the funds arising from the sale
1 See vol. ii. p. 295.
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SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.
of Western Lands reserved in the State's deed of cession to the United States in 1794-95, the importance of better qualified teachers was re- peatedly recognized, and was the main motive for assigning the fund to schools so as to secure better compensation for longer terms, and in that way hold out larger inducement for young people of talent and education to become teachers.
The first recognition of the importance of special training for the office of teaching appears in the Plan of an Academy for Schoolmasters, by Professor Olmsted, at that time (1816) Principal of the Union School in New London. In 1823 the importance of a County Seminary was touched upon by Professor Kingsley, of Yale College, in the "North American Review," and by Professor William Russell, a graduate of the University of Glasgow, then Principal of New Township Academy, in New Haven ; but it was more thoroughly dealt with in 1824 by the Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, Principal of the American Asylum at Hartford, in the " Connecticut Observer," the first article appearing over the signature of " A Father," on the 24th of January, 1825.
In 1838 the subject was introduced into the legislature by Henry Barnard, member of the House from Hartford, as one of the measures which might reasonably be anticipated from the better supervision of Common Schools by a State Board, for which he introduced a bill for a Public Act. As Secretary of the Board, Mr. Barnard began the pub- lication of the "Connecticut Common School Journal," and through that medium and his annual reports discussed fully the professional education of teachers, and the history of Normal Schools in Europe and in this country. In the ensuing four years, the essays of Mr. Gallaudet, and the report of Professor Stowe on Normal Schools and Teachers' Seminaries in Europe, and all that portion of Professor Bache's Report on Education in Europe, as the views of Cousin, Guizot, Mann, Stephens, Carter, Johnson, and other educators on the same subject, were spread before the people of the State, and finally embodied in a volume which in successive editions has furnished material and guidance for legis- lative and individual action in this department of popular education all over the country.
In May, 1839, the subject was urged upon the legislature by the Board of Commissioners in their first annual Report, as well as by the Secretary ; and a resolution, appropriating $5,000 for the educa- tion of teachers, was reported by the Committee on Education, ex- plained and advocated by the Secretary of the Board, passed the House without a dissenting voice, after a full expression of opinion, but was lost in the Senate. What the legislature refused to do, the Secretary undertook to do for Hartford County at his own expense. To show the value of even temporary instruction in school methods and man- agement, an invitation was extended to the teachers of Hartford County to come together and spend a few weeks under the general charge of Professor Wright, assisted by Professor Davies, the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, Professor Brace of the Hartford Female Sem- inary, Mr. Snow, Principal of the Centre District School, and the Rev. Mr. Barton, who had been connected with the Teachers' Seminary at Andover. Thus was begun in Connecticut a temporary assemblage of teachers which has since been known as the Teachers' Institute, and which was continued at other points in the State by Mr. Barnard
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