FRANCES SHIMER, PIONEER
By Mary Dewhurst Miles
CHAPTER TWO -- CONTINUING EDUCATION
(Continued from preceding issue)
When Frances found that the study of medicine was denied her, she determined to enter normal school and devote some time to teaching. At first she seems to have thought that she might be able to pursue medical studies after teaching for a time. But, later she decided to give her whole life to forwarding education for women. It was characteristic of her inquiring mind that in her developing woman-hood she should have surveyed the status of women in the educational world. She found that for some time women had been emerging from their life and position as chattels of the other sex. A new spirit of independence was rife. Frances had probably read of a certain Margaret Conwell in her own county, Saratoga, who had been advertised by her husband as having "left his bed and board." The indignant Margaret retorted in a paid advertisement of her own. "He should have showed that he had a bed, for this is the first time I ever knew that he was the owner of one. Indeed I am now inclined to believe that he alludes to one of mine. He says I have left his board. Now he never provided any board except now and then a scanty meal of potatoes. As for running him in debt he need have no apprehension as no one will trust him where he is so unfortunate as to be known."
The very fact that Frances Wood wanted to study medicine shows the stirring of a spirit expansion in the desires and aspirations of the young women of the time. Her special interest in education can be traced back to some of the compositions of her early school life. Thus before she was sixteen we find an unfinished essay on "Female Education" in the notebook from which we quote,
"A century ago it was not thought necessary for females to have an education, any more than to read and write, and that they could learn at a common district school, and if carried beyond this they thought it would lead them to neglect the more common, and consequently more useful employments, such as Culinary and Domestic Arts. But at the present day I suppose there are but few, if any (whose opinions are worthy of notice) that will pretend to deny the importance of the education of our sex, so many in my opinion are laboring under a great mistake as to the manner. Some think their daughters cannot get an education at a common school, but must be sent off some distance from home (as of course there is not a good Seminary within a hundred miles of anyplace), and at the expiration of the term they think they can speak French as well as a Parisian or a Florentine: They have got smattering of the Fine Arts, such as embroidery, Music, Drawing and flower painting, they have also been through Astronomy, Geology, Concology, and allmost everything taught there. They return to their parents thoroughly accomplished, and literally full of learning. And now commences a display of their accomplishments: the walls are hung with landscapes in oil, flowers in watercolors, india ink drawings, and superb vases of shellwork grace the mantels, and lampstands of glowing worsted decorate the center table. All this would do well enough for those whose rank in life require and whose ample fortunes will admit of it but there are but few of this class and even for the parents of those it would be well for them to remember that their wealth may take wings and fly away."
