(THEME)
ANNCR:
Welcome to People in America in VOA Special English. Every weekat this time, we tell the story of someone important in the historyof the United States. Today,
Steve Ember and Shirley Griffith tell about Mary Lyon. She was aleader in women’s education in the nineteenth century.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
During the nineteenth century, women’s education was notconsidered important in the United States. Supporters of advancededucation for women faced many problems.
States did require each town to provide a school for children,but teachers often were poorly prepared. Most young women were notable to continue on with their education in private schools. If theydid, they often were not taught much except the French language, howto sew clothing, and music.
Mary Lyon felt that women’s education was extremely important.Through her lifelong work for education she became one of the mostfamous women in nineteenth century America. She believed that womenwere teachers both in the home and in the classroom. And, shebelieved that efforts to better educate young women also served God.If women were better educated, she felt, they could teach in localschools throughout the United States and in foreign countries.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Mary Lyon was born in Buckland,Massachusetts, in Seventeen-Ninety-Seven. Her father died when shewas five years old. For Mary, hard work was a way of life. But shelater remembered with great pleasure her childhood years in the homewhere she was born. This is how she described what she could seefrom that house on a hill:
“The far-off mountains in all their grandeur, and the deepvalleys, and widely extended plains, and more than all, that littlevillage below, containing only a very few white houses, but morethan those young eyes had ever seen.”
VOICE ONE:
At the age of four, Mary began walking to the nearest schoolseveral kilometers away. Later, she began spending three months at atime with friends and relatives so she could attend other areaschools. She helped clean and cook to pay for her stay.
When Mary was thirteen, her mother re-married and moved toanother town. Mary was left to care for her older brother who workedon the family farm. He paid her a dollar a week. She saved it to payfor her education. Mary’s love of learning was so strong that sheworked and saved her small amount of pay so she could go to schoolfor another few months.
Mary began her first teaching job at a one-room local schoolteaching children for the summer. She was seventeen years old. Shewas paid seventy-five cents a week. She also was given meals and aplace to live.
Mary Lyon was not a very successful teacher at first. She did nothave much control over her students. She always was ready to laughwith them. Yet she soon won their parents’ respect with her skills.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
When Mary Lyon was twenty years old, she began a long period ofstudy and teaching. A new private school opened in the village ofAshfield, Massachusetts. It was called Sanderson Academy. Maryreally wanted to attend. She sold book coverings she had made. Andshe used everything she had saved from her pay as a teacher. Thiswas enough for her to begin attending Sanderson Academy.
At Sanderson, Mary began to study more difficult subjects. Theseincluded science, history and Latin. A friend who went to schoolwith Mary wrote of her “gaining knowledge by handfuls.” It is saidthat Mary memorized a complete book about the Latin language inthree days. Mary later wrote it was at Sanderson that she receivedthe base of her education.
VOICE ONE:
After a year at Sanderson Academy, Mary decided that herhandwriting was not good enough to be read clearly. She was atwenty-one-year-old woman. But she went to the local public schooland sat among the children so she could learn better writing skills.
In Eighteen-Twenty-One, Mary Lyon went to another private schoolwhere she was taught by Reverend Joseph Emerson. Mary said he talkedto women “as if they had brains.” She praised his equal treatment ofmen and women when it came to educating them.
VOICE TWO:
Three years later, Mary Lyon opened a school for young women inthe village of Buckland. She called it the Buckland Female Seminary.Classes were held in a room on the third floor of a house.
Mary’s students praised her teaching. She proposed new ways ofteaching, including holding discussion groups where studentsexchange ideas.
Mary said it was while teaching at Buckland that she firstthought of founding a private school open to daughters of farmersand skilled workers. She wanted education, not profits, to be themost important thing about the school. At that time, schools ofhigher learning usually were supported by people interested inprofits from their investment.
VOICE ONE:
In Eighteen-Twenty-Eight, Mary became sick with typhoid fever.When her health improved, she decided to leave Buckland, the schoolshe had started. She joined a close friend, Zilpah Grant, who hadbegun another private school, Ipswich Female Seminary.
At Ipswich, Mary taught and was responsible forone-hundred-thirty students. It was one of the best schools at thetime. But it lacked financial support. Mary said the lack of supportwas because of “good men’s fear of greatness in women.” Zilpah Grantand Mary Lyon urged that Ipswich be provided buildings so that theschool might become permanent. However, their appeal failed.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Mary resigned from Ipswich. She helped to organize anotherprivate school for women, Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton,Massachusetts. It opened in Eighteen Thirty-Five.
She also began to raise money for her dream of a permanent,non-profit school for the higher education of women. This schoolwould own its own property. It would be guided by an independentgroup of directors. Its finances would be the responsibility of thedirectors, not of investors seeking profit. The school would notdepend on any one person to continue. And, the students would sharein cleaning and cooking to keep costs down.
VOICE ONE:
Mary Lyon got a committee of advisers to help her in planning andbuilding the school. She collected the first thousand dollars forthe school from women in and around the town of Ipswich. At onepoint, she even lent the committee some of her own money. She didnot earn any money until she became head of the new school.
Mary Lyon opened Mount Holyoke Seminary for Women inEighteen-Thirty-Seven. It was in the town of South Hadley,Massachusetts. She had raised more than twelve-thousand dollars. Itwas enough to build a five-story building.
Four teachers and the first class of eighty young women lived andstudied in the building when the school opened. By the next year,the number of students had increased to one-hundred-sixteen. Maryknew the importance of what had been established — the firstindependent school for the higher education of women.
VOICE TWO:
The school continued to grow. More students began to attend. Thesize of the building was increased. And, all of the students wererequired to study for four years instead of three.
Mary Lyon was head of the school for almost twelve years. Shedied in Eighteen-Forty-Nine. She was fifty-two years old.
She left behind a school of higher education for women. It had nodebt. And it had support for the future provided by thousands ofdollars in gifts.
In Eighteen-Ninety-Three, under a state law, Mount Holyoke FemaleSeminary became a college. Mount Holyoke College was the firstcollege to offer women the same kind of education as was offered tomen.
VOICE ONE:
People who have studied Mary Lyon say she was not fighting abattle of equality between men and women. Yet she knew she wantedmore for women.
Her efforts led to the spread of higher education for women inthe United States. Historians say she was the strongest influence onthe education of American young people during the middle of thenineteenth century. Her influence lasted as the many students fromMary Lyon’s schools went out to teach others.
(THEME)
VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Vivian Bournazian.I’m Shirley Griffith
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week at this same timefor another People in American program on the Voice of America.