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Um. What exactly did this mean?


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Am I reading this out of context, or is it being used out of context? This quote is contained (about the sixth paragraph on down) at this: Early College Women

 

This scientific reasoning added fuel to the arguments of those who did not want women to go to college for social reasons. Henry Adams, writing about women’s intellectual ambitions for higher education, commented on “...the pathetic impossibility of improving those poor little, hard, thin, wiry, one-stringed instruments which they call their minds.” In 1885 he complained bitterly in a letter of protest to the American Historical Association when he found a woman historian listed in the program of a AHA meeting.

 

Whew, for a minute there I thought the dude was writin' bout himself...:tongue_smilie:

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Am I reading this out of context, or is it being used out of context? This quote is contained (about the sixth paragraph on down) at this: Early College Women

 

This scientific reasoning added fuel to the arguments of those who did not want women to go to college for social reasons. Henry Adams, writing about women’s intellectual ambitions for higher education, commented on “...the pathetic impossibility of improving those poor little, hard, thin, wiry, one-stringed instruments which they call their minds.†In 1885 he complained bitterly in a letter of protest to the American Historical Association when he found a woman historian listed in the program of a AHA meeting.

 

Whew, for a minute there I thought the dude was writin' bout himself...:tongue_smilie:

 

Obviously outrageous but as insults go.....not bad, not bad at all.

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Oh good grief, this is amazing to read about....I started this with just trying to understand the American culture due to Eliza Farrar (mentioned in WEM) and her times...so the question on my mind was this..

 

"What was it like for the women of her time to try to self-educate, and what were the barriers against higher education, why didn't they just continue onto college?"

 

Oh duh. They weren't allowed to...because of stuff like this:

 

Women's Colleges

 

A second argument was that women would not be able to endure the strain of higher learning. As one historian noted: "Women were thought to be frail...overstudy would surely give them brain fever! And should they manage to survive college, their children would be sickly, if they were able to have children at all." [ Newcomer, A Century of Higher Education for American Women , p. 28.] One retired Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Edward Clarke, published a treatise in 1873 entitled Sex in Education. After observing several students at women’s colleges, he wrote that if women used their "limited energy" on studying, they would endanger their "female apparatus." [ Clarke cited in Barbara Miller Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985, p. 56.] He believed that a young woman could not undertake college studies and "retain uninjured health and a future secure from neuralgia, uterine disease, hysteria, and other derangements of the nervous system." Clarke’s arguments seemed not only to offer scientific validity to the prejudices of the day, but also to affirm that women ought to preserve their childbearing capacities for the good of society. [ Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women , p. 56.]

 

----

 

That is stunning to read. Stunning.

 

Was everyone in America running around thinking like that? :confused:

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Am I reading this out of context, or is it being used out of context? This quote is contained (about the sixth paragraph on down) at this: Early College Women

 

This scientific reasoning added fuel to the arguments of those who did not want women to go to college for social reasons. Henry Adams, writing about women’s intellectual ambitions for higher education, commented on “...the pathetic impossibility of improving those poor little, hard, thin, wiry, one-stringed instruments which they call their minds.†In 1885 he complained bitterly in a letter of protest to the American Historical Association when he found a woman historian listed in the program of a AHA meeting.

 

Whew, for a minute there I thought the dude was writin' bout himself...:tongue_smilie:

 

I'm sure such attitudes had nothing to do with Mrs Henry Adams taking a lethal dose of cyanide ;)

 

Bill

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So he was the grandson of President John Quincy Adams?

 

She, *Clover* (his wife)- was this outrageously talented, well-read socialite, then, after she dies...he rips up all her letters and edits her out of an educational 'dawning' treatise? And it wins the Pulitizer Prize?

 

Pfft.

 

She probably wrote it in the original draft....

Edited by one*mom
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So he was the grandson of President John Quincy Adams?

 

She, *Clover* (his wife)- was this outrageously talented, well-read socialite, then, after she dies...he rips up all her letters and edits her out of an educational 'dawning' treatise? And it wins the Pulitizer Prize?

 

Pfft.

 

She probably wrote it in the original draft....

 

Men :glare:

 

Bill :D

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The mind stutters.

 

One day he's calling women hair brains..the next minute he's winning a Pulitzer on higher education values.

 

Okay, who were the judges in 1919 on the Pulitzer Committee? I bet it was all men.. (edit, yes..it was all men-busted)

 

No woman in her right mind would have allowed that to push through. :D

 

He removed over twenty years of history in that book....the years in which she lived and most likely contributed great thoughts and ideas in it.

 

I smell a cover-up.

 

Who says she mixed the cyanide herself? He probably did it after catching her scribble some algebra in a notebook.

 

Naughty Clover. Naughty.

Edited by one*mom
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The mind stutters.

 

One day he's calling women hair brains..the next minute he's winning a Pulitzer on higher education values.

 

Okay, who were the judges in 1919 on the Pulitzer Committee? I bet it was all men..

 

No woman in her right mind would have allowed that to push through. :D

 

He removed over twenty years of history in that book....the years in which she lived and most likely contributed great thoughts and ideas in it.

 

I smell a cover-up.

 

Who says she mixed the cyanide herself? Her probably did it after catching her scribble some algebra in a notebook.

 

Naughty Clover. Naughty.

 

Unsurprisingly, all men.

 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, president, Columbia University

 

Griffin, Solomon B., managing editor, Springfield (MA) Republican

 

Heaton, John Langdon, editorial writer, The New York World

 

Lawson, Victor Fremont, editor and publisher, Chicago Daily News

 

Miller, Charles Ransom, editor, The New York Times

 

Mitchell, Edward Page, editor-in-chief, The New York Sun

 

Pulitzer, Ralph, publisher, The New York World

 

Stone, Melville Elijah, general manager, The Associated Press

 

Taylor, Charles H., editor and publisher, The Boston Globe

 

Wells, Samuel Calvin, editor-in-cheif, Philadelphia Press

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See, I don't get how any married man could think women were so stupid, or that other married men could be influenced by that. (More likely they didn't want to bother arguing against it.)

 

Maybe part of this was influenced by women's health issues of the day. I mean, a lot of women died or were severely taxed in childbirth, or had other health issues that are rather easily dealt with today. The whole thing about "limited energy" and "weak" might be related to that. Couple that with the fact that there were practically no well-educated women to counter the idea, and I can almost see some men believing it.

 

It just amuses me now, but when I was a teen it used to bug me. I have three brothers, including two older than me. I recall putting them in their place by pointing out that I outperformed them in just about every measurable area other than physical strength (and wasn't far behind on that, either). One day I actually felt bad for giving my oldest brother an inferiority complex. Ha ha.

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I don't think you'll find any other country at this time was any better. There may have been pockets of more liberal thinking, but in general this was very prevalent (and in some parts of the world may still be).

 

Yep. Americans, in fact, were comparatively liberated and had the stereotype of having lots of energetic, unusually athletic and outspoken young women. American women did go to college in the 1870s, so that was an improvement, but of course lots of people like Adams were against it.

 

I love to read about some of the amazing Victorian women out there who accomplished incredible things. I read about women who would get up at 4am to study, then put in a full day of work and child-rearing and farm-running--in Victorian clothes--and I feel kind of inadequate. :D

Edited by dangermom
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Am I reading this out of context, or is it being used out of context? This quote is contained (about the sixth paragraph on down) at this: Early College Women

 

This scientific reasoning added fuel to the arguments of those who did not want women to go to college for social reasons. Henry Adams, writing about women’s intellectual ambitions for higher education, commented on “...the pathetic impossibility of improving those poor little, hard, thin, wiry, one-stringed instruments which they call their minds.” In 1885 he complained bitterly in a letter of protest to the American Historical Association when he found a woman historian listed in the program of a AHA meeting.

 

Whew, for a minute there I thought the dude was writin' bout himself...:tongue_smilie:

I'm having the strangest "aha" thing going on after reading this article and this thread. It has been passed down in my family about how unusual it was for my great-grandmother to have gone to college. (She went to "normal" school after she graduated high school at age 16. "Normal" schools were teacher education schools, for any who might not have known.)

 

I always assumed it was unusual because she came from a fairly rural Iowa community and hardly anyone went to college, men or women, though I did know more men went than women. I just sort of assumed that part was because women were usually two or three years younger than their husbands, so they just didn't have time to go before they got married.

 

Wow!

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I woke up thinking about this again this morning. I actually had to go take a walk it bothered me so much.

 

I remember my father talking about "normal school". My father bailed in the 7th grade, entered the Army. My mother was the first literate woman in her family (Native American / Indian Boarding School).

 

I can remember as a kid growing up watching NOW marches on a black and white television; I don't remember any sort of idea because I was female I was not expected to learn. So, I can locate in my own history some divides on the idea... generationally speaking.

 

The other night I was watching a small clip where Nicki Minaj surprised a couple of young girls..probably like 7 years old...onstage at an Ellen Show taping. She came out on stage, the little girls of course were all afaint at her showing up..and the first words out were, "Stay in School, Don't ever Quit, Read Your Books." So props to Ms. Minaj on that issue.

 

On my walk today I was thinking, "Okay, Classical Education, the entire theory and application of it..worldwide..ancient history till today, the whole thing....was this sort of education meant only for Alpha Societal Males? Can I trust that as a method?" I mean I was seriously having some thoughts here...they were wandering all over the place.

 

So ya, I've been kicking some rocks on this. Thanks Eliza Farrar, see what you started?

 

Call me Thomas for the week, I feel very cautious suddenly.

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I recently read Helen Keller's "The Story of my Life." It gives some picture of what women were doing in college when she was around 20. Obviously we're talking about privileged women. They had rigorous studies, but she did bemoan the fact that some of the young women were shallow. (Still true today, of course.)

 

Some of her story talks about gender discrimination, particularly in the areas of higher, meaningful thinking (like whether females were allowed to give speeches at men's colleges). Miss Keller thought it was all quite ridiculous. I'm thinking her teacher, Anne Sullivan, felt the same.

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I always assumed it was unusual because she came from a fairly rural Iowa community and hardly anyone went to college, men or women, though I did know more men went than women. I just sort of assumed that part was because women were usually two or three years younger than their husbands, so they just didn't have time to go before they got married.

 

 

 

My g-grandmother was barely allowed to go to high school--her parents thought it a waste of time. She was not allowed to go to college at all (she got her BA in accounting in 1969!). And therefore she was very very angry at her daughter--my grandmother--when she decided to drop out of college to get married. Because in the 1940's, colleges did not allow married women to attend at all.

 

On my walk today I was thinking, "Okay, Classical Education, the entire theory and application of it..worldwide..ancient history till today, the whole thing....was this sort of education meant only for Alpha Societal Males? Can I trust that as a method?" I mean I was seriously having some thoughts here...they were wandering all over the place.

 

Yes indeed, classical education was for the elite (almost all men, though a few women got classical educations too). It was for "free citizens" who were supposed to know how to act in a free society. NOW we can try to give that "free citizen" elite education to everyone.

 

John Taylor Gatto quotes Woodrow Wilson in 1909: "We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

 

Well, times have changed and we all deserve the privilege of a liberal education. :001_smile:

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I have a confession to make.

 

This whole thing is breaking my heart. Really.

 

I sit here, having studied all day, side by side with my daughter, year 2012.

 

I'm going through records and recollections of the late 18th century American and the education of women. To say it is gore and blood doesn't quite touch it exactly. Not even close.

 

So, back to now. To my left, this child of 8 years old, a female. Internet access, transportation, willing educators, laws written saying they are under compulsory law to learn, to attend, pay attention, perform.

 

The landscape of today, with access to higher education, the ability to self-sustain if chosen later in life, so many barriers removed....

 

And when she struggles against the grain of learning, I find my breath just drawn lightly; somehow newly horrified when held against the pictures and reality of the past plight of women and education.

 

The difficulties they surmounted, the miles they walked just to be able to talk about books and ideas; the ridicule they faced, the odds were so slim.

 

How am I ever going to break it down for this kid, how precious is it that she lives in an age where we expect education when once it was drowned like a bag of unwanted kittens in the river?

 

I don't quite know how to capture properly the things I've read today.

 

All non-fiction, but not meant to be horror novels - but truly were in the reality of the lives I've read today.

 

Gah.

 

I feel this burden in seeing one sparkle of this history.

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So he was the grandson of President John Quincy Adams?

 

She, *Clover* (his wife)- was this outrageously talented, well-read socialite, then, after she dies...he rips up all her letters and edits her out of an educational 'dawning' treatise? And it wins the Pulitizer Prize?

 

Pfft.

 

She probably wrote it in the original draft....

 

His great grandmother was probably rolling in her grave that he thought of his wife like that.

 

Adams is remembered for the many letters she wrote to her husband while he stayed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Continental Congresses. John frequently sought the advice of Abigail on many matters, and their letters are filled with intellectual discussions on government and politics. The letters serve as eyewitness accounts of the American Revolutionary War home front.
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You guys have to save me.

 

I just went on a half hour rant in the house..spilling the contents of my head on the whole subject - the receiving audience, darling...an engineer.

 

He had no comment.

 

Help. Someone open their WEM book to page 15. I need to explain myself here. That book is dangerous and beyond fascinating.

 

Really.

 

Let me know when I have a comrade in arms here..I'm in the logic stage of the first chapter now, and it's really spinning me out.

 

I'm going to journal on this tomorrow, but for today - still studying it. You won't believe the stuff I've found. Truly.

 

PS: I say we go dig Clover up. She'd probably appreciate a move.

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I'll be doing the journaling of page 15 tomorrow; it will be extensive. I don't know...haven't met yet is maybe the right word...anyone that has taken WEM with the same "approach" I have.

 

In my "world" of understanding how this book words, I would define myself as in the 1st "logic" stage of Chapter 1. This means, I've read the entire chapter, taken my notes, and am back for round two and the under-stories within the text. (If that makes sense.)

 

I also "in my world" understanding, approach WEM in two distinct fields; that of the "journaling of the first reading/or grammar stage" which is completely separate from the "note-taking" of the book.

 

My journaling so far is here: Journaling of WEM

 

and tomorrow is going to be a doozy. It will cover the figures/names on page 15..and those are:

 

Harold Bloom, Eliza Farrar (who started this whole rant) and Mary Wilson Gilchrist, the Ohio Female College....the rest of the "names" on page 15 I still have to hit, they remain untouched. So really, just those four, but it took me honestly, about 3 days to really hit what those entries even hint at.

 

This is the current state of page 15 - lol - as I've marked it.

 

wem15.jpg

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