HANNAH MORE, b. 1745,-d. 1833.

HANNAH MORE, whose name was prominent in English literary history of the last century, and is entitled to respectful recognition in the annals of education both for what she wrote, and for what she did in a neglected portion of the field, was born in Stapleton, near Bristol, in 1745. Her father was teacher in a small Grammar School, and gave his five daughters a substantial education for the period. The eldest, on reaching the age of twenty-one, established a boarding-school for girls in Bristol in 1759, in which she was assisted by her sisters Elizabeth and Sarah, and which Hannah and Martha attended as pupils, until they were old enough to teach. This group of maiden sisters became a notable institution of charity and education for a half century.

Hannah More, although an invalid, was a diligent scholar, and became known as an author of the religious type in 1773, when she published the pastoral drama, The Search after Happiness, and in the year following, The Inflexible Captive. These dramas attracted the attention of David Garrick and his wife, and through them of Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others eminent in art, literature, and society. Her letters from London until she retired to quiet literary labor and charitable work to Cowslip Green (1785), and afterwards (1789) to Barley Wood, give a pleasing picture of that great literary circle. Miss Kavanagh, in her volume of Women of Christianity, thus describes her

Schools for Poor Children.

At some distance from Cowslip Green, and in the immediate vicinity of the Mendip Hills, lies the village of Cheddar, a decayed market town of Somersetshire. It was then in a state of barbarous ignorance; which caused Mrs. Hannah More to observe, that "while we were sending missionaries to propagate the Gospel in India, our own villages were in pagan darkness. In more than pagan darkness-would have been as correct an expression: there is something noble in the free life of the savage; though he may be criminal and barbarous, he cannot, whilst he breathes the pure air of liberty, be quite degraded. But what condition is that of the peasant who, to physical misery unknown in the savage state, unites the vices of civilization with few or none of its virtues! By law, indeed, the spiritual distress of Cheddar and its vicinity was provided for: the vicar of Cheddar resided at Oxford, and received fifty pounds a year for duties which he never fulfilled; the resident rector of Axbridge "was intoxicated about six times a week, and very frequently prevented from preaching by two black eyes, honestly acquired by fighting.'

Mrs. Hannah More, and her sister Martha, who was then staying with her, resolved to go amongst those heathens of Christianity, and see what good they could do in a place where they knew not a single individual; where the literary fame of one sister was unheard of, and where the station of both was not likely to possess much influence with the few wealthy and ignorant farmers whose will was the law of the place. It possessed no gentry, and of the two thousand inhabitants by far the greater number were miserably poor. A clergymen rode over from Wells once every Sunday, to preach to a congregation of eight persons; and in the whole

village there was but one Bible, and that was used to prop a flower-pot. Hannah More and her sister began by taking a lodging in a small publichouse; then, after having examined the state of things, they resolved to open a school. In a letter written by Mrs. Hannah More to a friend, we find the following account of this first attempt: "I was told we should meet with great opposition if I did not try to propitiate the chief despot of the village, who is very rich and very brutal; so I ventured to the den of this monster, in a country as savage as himself. He begged I would not think of bringing any religion into the country; it made the poor lazy and useless. In vain I represented to him that they would be more industrious, as they were better principled and that I had no selfish views in what I was doing. He gave me to understand that he knew the world too well to believe either the one or the other. I was almost discouraged from more visits, but I found that friends must be secured at all events; for if these rich savages set their faces against us, I saw that nothing but hostilities would ensue; so I made eleven more of these agreeable visits, and as I improved in the art of canvassing, had better success. Miss W would have been shocked had she seen the petty tyrants whose insolence I stroked and tamed, the ugly children I praised, the pointers and spaniels I caressed, the cider I commended, and the wine I swallowed. After these irresisti ble flatteries, I enquired of each if he could recommend me a house, and said that I had a little plan which I hoped would secure their orchards from being robbed, their rabbits from being shot, their game from being stolen, and which might lower the poor rates. If effect be the best proof of eloquence, then mine was a good speech, for I gained in time the hearty concurrence of the whole people, and their promise to discourage or favor the poor as they were attentive or negligent in sending their children."

A house in which to establish a school was procured, not without some difficulty. The poor, for whose benefit this was intended, were almost as difficult to conciliate as the rich; but patience and perseverance ultimately overcame their prejudices. The school was opened by Hannah More and her sister one Sunday morning; children attended it, and received their first lessons in the presence of their parents. On the Sundays they were taught reading, and received religious instruction; on week-days the girls learned to knit and sew. The two ladies soon had three hundred children, whom they placed under the charge of a discreet matron.

Encouraged by success, they resolved to extend the benefits they had conferred on Cheddar to other places, where it was fully as much needed. Funds were required, and were liberally supplied by their friends. Thus supported, they set about establishing schools in the neighboring districts; but everywhere the farmers opposed them; and when this obstacle was overcome, another no less serious existed in the difficulty of finding proper teachers. Mrs. Hannah More and her sister had, in the end, to teach the teachers, -a borious and fatiguing task.

Near the summit of Mendip there existed two mining villages, noted for the depravity and ignorance of their inhabitants. The ladies were warned that constables would not venture to execute their office in this wild region, and that by seeking to penetrate amongst these barbarians, they were only perilling their own lives, with little chance of doing good. They persisted; but their reception was not encouraging: the people thought they wanted to make money by selling their children as slaves, and that if they were unfortunately allowed to teach them for seven years, they would indubltably acquire the right of sending them over the seas. Spite of this unpropitious beginning, they succeeded in securing pupils; their number ultimately exceeded twelve hundred, and parents gladly availed themselves of the instruction they had at first dreaded for their children.

Hannah More has not recorded all the difficulties, and, to a certain degree, the dangers, which beset her in her efforts at civilizing rude and degraded peasants; but the little she has said is significant. In a letter to her friend Wilberforce, from whom she derived both aid and counsel, she thus describes the opening of a school, in a spot more aqandoned and depraved than any she had yet visited: 'It was an affecting sight; several of the grown-up youths had been tried at the last assizes-three were the

children of a person lately condemned to be hanged-many were thieves! -all ignorant, profane, and vicious beyond relief. Of this banditti we have enlisted one hundred and seventy: and when the clergyman, a hard inan, who is also a magistrate, saw these creatures kneeling round us, whom he had seldom seen but to commit or punish in some way, he burst into tears."

The bodily wants of these unhappy people were not forgotten by the benevolent sisters: their purse was ever open in seasons of famine or sickness, and the schoolmistresses whom they appointed were the ministers of physical as well as spiritual charity. Generally speaking, the schools succeeded, and were attended with the most beneficial results. In one parish so violent a persecution was raised by the clergyman, (who had, however, been the first to invite Mrs. Hannah More,) that she was compelled to relinquish her task. Repeated attacks of ill health, and the infirmities of age, naturally restricted her labors; but she had the satisfaction of knowing that what she could not always do herself, was done by able assistants: many of whom had been educated in those schools where they now taught in their turn.*

In 1802 Mrs. Hannah More removed from Cowslip Green to Barley Wood, where she had erected a mansion large enough for herself and her sisters, who gave up their house at Bath to reside exclusively with her.

In 1787 appeared her Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society; in 1791, An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World, and about the same time her Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont in the National Convention of France.

In 1792 she began the publication of little tracts, with Village Politics, and the Shepherd of Salisbury Plains; of the last, two millions copies were sold the first year.

In 1799, her Strictures on Female Education were printed, and such was their popularity, that the author was invited to draw up a plan of instruction for the Princess Charlotte of Wales, which was published in 1805, as Hints toward Forming the Character of a Young Princess.

In 1809 appeared her Calebs in Search of a Wife, which had a sale of unprecedented rapidity, and in America thirty editions were printed in the life time of the author. She herself was assailed from many quarters with offers of hand and fortune, but she stood firm to her original refusal, many years before, of Mr. Turner, whose friendship she retained till his death. She was from the first known as Mrs. Hannah More.

In 1811 was published her Practical Piety; in 1812 her Christian Morals; in 1815 her Essay on the Character and Writings of St. Paul, and in 1819 her Modern Sketches. She died in Clifton, Sept. 7, 1833. Her collected works are issued by Harper Brothers in 11 volumes, and her memoir and correspondence in 2 vols.

In 1859, R. Carter & Brothers published "Mendip Hills; or a Narrative of the Charitable Labors of Hannah and Martha More, in their neighborhood-Being the Journal of Martha More from 1789." On the school Miss More spent £250 yearly.

ACADEMY FOR WOMEN.

'Wo reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence, while I am confident had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.' He complains that the women of his time were taught merely the mechanical parts of knowledge-such as reading, writing, and sewing-Instead of being exalted into rational companions; and he argues that 'men in the same class of society would cut a sorry figure if their education were to be equally neglected.'

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And it is manifest, that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others. Why, then, should women be denied the benefit of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God would never have given them capacities, for He made nothing needless. What has woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught? Does she plague us with her pride and impertinence? Why do we not let her learn, that she may have more wit? Shall we upbraid woman with folly, when it is only the error of this inhuman custom that hinders her being made wiser? Women, in my observation of them, have little or no difference, but as they are or are not distinguished by education. Tempers, indeed, may in some degree influence them, but the main distinguishing part is their breeding. If a woman be well-bred, and taught the proper management of her natural wit, she proves generally very sensible and retentive; and, without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of God's creation, the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of His singular regard to man, to whom He gave the best gift either God could bestow or man receive; and it is the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world to withhold from the sex the due lustre which the advantages of education give to the natural beauty of their minds. A woman, well-bred and well-taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavior, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments; she is all softness and sweetness, love, wit, and delight; she is every way suitable to the sublimest wish; and the man that has such a one to his portion has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be thankful. I cannot think that God ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and delightful to mankind, with souls capable of the same enjoyments as men, and all to be only stewards of our homes, cooks and slaves.

The persons who enter (one of the Houses, of which there should be at least one in each county, and ten in London) should be taught all sorts of breeding suitable to both their genius and their quality; and in particular music and dancing, which it would be cruelty to bar the sex of, because they are their darlings: but besides this, they should be taught French and Italian; and I would venture the injury of giving a woman more tongues than one.

They should, as a particular study, be taught all the graces of speech, and all the necessary air of conversation; which our common education is so defective in, that I need not expose it; they should be brought to read books, and especially history, and so to read as to make them understand the world, and be able to know and judge of things when they hear of them.

To such whose genius would lead them to it, I would deny no sort of learning; but the chief thing in general is to cultivate the understandings of the sex, that they may be capable of all sorts of conversation; that their parts and judgments being improved, they may be as profitable in their conversation as they are pleasant.

In short, I would have men take women for companions, and educate them to be fit for it. A woman of sense and breeding will scorn as much to encroach upon the prerogative of the man, as a man of sense will scorn tɔ oppress the weakness of the woman. But if the women's souls were refined and improved by teaching, that word would be lost; to say, The Weakness of the Sex, as to judgment, would be nonsense; for ignorance and folly would be no more to be found among women than men. I remember a passage which I heard from a very fine woman, who had wit and capacity enough, an extraordinary shape and face, and a great fortune, but had been cloistered up all her time, and for fear of being stolen had not had the liberty of being taught the common necessary knowledge of women's affairs; and when she came to converse in the world, her natural wit made her so sensible of the want of education, that she gave this short reflection on herself:

I am ashamed to talk with my very maids, for I don't know when they do right or wrong: I had more need to go to school, than be married.'

BY F. A. P. BARNARD, S. T. D., LL. D.,

President of Columbia College.

EXISTING COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR WOMEN.

THE Condition of the College is now such as to justify the suggestion of the question whether its advantages should not be opened to young women as well as to young men.

Many considerations suggest themselves which make in its favor. In the first place, there can be no doubt that, among many of our most judicious thinkers, and possibly with even a majority, there exists at this time a profound conviction that, in the interests of society, the mental culture of women should be not inferior in character to that of men. The condemnation of that kind of female education which in past years has been too prevalent-in which the useful has been made subordinate to the ornamental, and what are called accomplishments have taken the place of solid acquisitions—is all but universal. The demand has been made, and its reasonableness has been generally conceded, that the same educational advantages should be offered to young women which young men enjoy. But when the question is raised as to how that demand shall be met, there is no longer found to prevail the same unanimity.

One obvious method is to improve the female schools. Of such institutions there are, and have always been, a sufficient number; but the fault of most of these is that they furnish the merely superficial and ornamental education of which complaint is made. Such cannot be improved except by reconstruction, for their instructors cannot rise above their own level, and their proper level is indicated by the teaching they have been accustomed to give.

Another method is to create colleges for young women identical in form with the existing colleges for young men, embracing in the scheme of instruction the same subjects in the same order, and conferring at the end of the course the same academic degrees. Examples of this kind of institution are seen at Vassar College, in this State, and at Rutgers' Female College, in this city. The objection to these is that they cannot, or at least in general will not, give instruction of equal value, though it may be the same in name, with that furnished to young men in the long-established and well-endowed colleges of highest repute in the country; and that it is unjust to young women, when admitting their right to liberal education, to deny them access to the best. In England the reasonableness of this objection has been tacitly admitted by the creation of a college for women in the vicinity of Cam*Report of President Barnard to Trustees of Columbia College, 1879.