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
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