Boarding School For Girls example essay topic

It was once said by Thomas Wentworth Higginson that I, laid the foundation upon with every women's college or coeducational college may be said to rest. I consider this to bea gross exaggeration. In this day and age, when equality of educational opportunity for women is a commonplace, no one can read of my passionate desire to secure justice form sex in education, my wide visioned plan for the reconstruction of the pseudo-education given to girls, my never swerving faith in the possibilities of women, and the unceasing efforts I put forward to realize my dreams. I have been asked to speak to all of you today on just that and the course of my life. However, because of my old age, I am 217 year sold, I often times have troubles remembering, so please do bare with me. My name is Emma Willard.

I was born in the small village of Berlin, Connecticut, February 23, 1787. My father was Capt. Samuel Hart and my mother was Lydia Hinsdale Hart. Within the large circle of my family, I was the 16th child of 17, I grew up attending the public school of the village. I loved school and was always eager and enthusiastic about learning new things.

When I turned 15 I enrolled in the town academy, where for 2 years I studied udder the guidance of a Yale graduate and distinguished physician. My career began early compared to that of today. At the age of 17 I was appointed mistress of the district school of Kensington. It was there that I discovered my desire and love for teaching. In 1806 I was offered a position in the Academy of Berlin. The next year I received 3 offers to teach outside the state.

I chose to go to Westfield, but within a few months Middlebury made a tempting offer to assume the management of the female academy. It was here that my association with the educated group of townspeople led me to perceive that men did not take the education of girls seriously. My association with these people led me to form some years later the resolution tha was to bethe dominating purpose of my life-the determination to secure or someone the opportunities for learning as a human right and to extend these privileges as far as possible to all women. Throughout my entire life I never swayed from this.

In 1809, I married Dr. John Willard. 3 years after our marriage serious financial problems hit my husband which crippled his income, but I saw this as an opportunity to make my attempt to improve women's education. In 1814 with my husbands help I opened a boarding school for girls. When I began my boarding school in Middlebury my leading motive was to relieve my husband from financial difficulties.

I had also the further motive of keeping a better school than those about me; but it was not till a year or two after that I formed the design of effecting an important change in education by the introduction of a grade of schools for women higher than any heretofore know. My neighborhood to Middlebury College made me feel bitterly the disparity in educational facilities between the two sexes, and I hoped that if the matter was once set before the men as legislators, they would be ready to correct the error. For several years while my school was still young I worked on my Plan for Improving Female Education. I shaped and re-shaped my arguments making them persuasive and cogent. At the request of various members of legislature, I read a manuscript of my Plant them.

Yet, in the end legislature did little to enable me to realize my dreams of a higher school for girls adequately funded from public funds. Still, I remained determined to accomplish my goal. I published my plan in a pamphlet form at my own expense. It was widely read by both Americans and Europeans alike.

President Monroe and Thomas Jefferson all approved of it. And I even received a cordial letter from John Adams. Soon after this, an incredible disappointment struck my school. A bill granting $2,000 tothe school passed the senate, but was voted down by the assembly. The regents decided to withhold from the academy all assistance from the state fund. I was dismayed at the failed attempts of my plans.

I felt the humiliating defeat of all my hopes almost to a frenzy and still now years after my death I can t recall it without great agitation. Luckily someone was looking out for me. I was invited to move my school to the city of Troy where they raised $4,000 to go towards my school. I was 34 years old when my school in Troy opened.

It was something that no woman before me had tried. Little belittle I added courses in algebra, history, geography, and physics. No other girls seminary in the country boasted these advanced courses. Believing that school life should approximate life in the community and prepare for it, I ordained a scheme of students self government and appointed girls as monitors. These monitors made tours of inspection through the students rooms and regularly reported cases of untidiness and infractions of disciple to the teacher who was officer of the week. The students were housed by twos in simple but comfortable rooms which they were expected to keep in perfect order.

Each week one room-mate in turn had charge of the room and was held responsible for its cleanliness and for the tidiness of dresser drawers, which were duly inspected. I only sought to convince the culprit of her mistakes, but to encourage her to improve her conduct by pointing out her good traits. In 1838, at the age of 51 I retired from active management of the school of Troy. I left its supervision to my son, John, and his gifted wife. By 1850 my son and daughter had made my school into one of the finest girls schools in the world. After my retirement from Troy I went from school to school giving model lessons in reading, geography, and math.

After 4 years of labor I returned to Troy and embarked in a strenuous campaign for the improvement of schools in New York state As a result of this I was invited to tour several countries and address teaching institutions pointing out the way of educational reform. In 1846 I decided to make a more adventurous journey by stagecoach through the states ofthe West and South, addressing groups of teachers and citizens interested in education. Near my later life I remained busy with congenial literary work. I lived quietly and happily near my son, in close touch with the famous school which I founded.

I died on April 15, 1870 at the age of 83. Since my death, I guess you could say that my dream has finally come true. Women now recieve the educational opportunity equal to that of men.