Ohio History Journal


OHIO

OHIO

Archaeological and Historical

QUARTERLY.

 

 

THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN

IN THE OHIO VALLEY

PREVIOUS TO 1840

 

 

BY JANE SHERZER.

The section of country investigated in this paper under

the name of "The Ohio Valley" includes Western Pennsylvania

and West Virginia; Southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; and

Kentucky and Tennessee. In West Virginia, in Southern Indiana

and Illinois there were no schools for the higher education of

women up to 1840. It is true, early in 1840, in Indiana there were

two schools started for the higher education of women, -the

Rockville Female Seminary on January 31, 1840, and the Craw-

fordsville Female Institute on February 24, 1840, but they will

not be treated in this paper. Neither will we discuss Jackson-

ville, Illinois, as it is outside of the boundary set for this

treatise although it was a great educational center, for the

Beechers had found their way thither. In 1830, or perhaps

even before that time, good female academies had been started

in that city. Nor can we take the time here to include the

female academies in Dayton, Ohio, or that vicinity.

The term, "higher education for women," in those early

years covered a course of study not equal to that of good high

schools of the present day, but the same may be said of colleges

for men, and it was higher in the sense of giving young women

an education much beyond the common branches of reading.

writing, and arithmetic. It differed from the colleges for men

mainly in the substitution of French for Greek, and in the

(1)