PREFACE ix Miss ANNA C. BRACKETT.

A PLAN FOR IMPROVING FEMALE EDUCATION 1 Mrs. EMMA WILLARD, 1819.

FEMALE EDUCATION 47 Mrs. EMMA C. EMBURY, 1831.

THE COLLEGIATE EDUCATION OF GIRLS 65 Prof. MARIA MITCHELL, Vassar College, 1880.

A NEW KNOCK AT AN OLD DOOR 79 Mrs. LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE, 1883.

A REVIEW OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 103 Mrs. ALICE FREEMAN PALMER, 1889.

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY IN ACADEMIES AND COLLEGES 131 Prof. LUCY M. SALMON, Vassar College, 1890.

THE PRIVATE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS 153 Miss ANNA C. BRACKETT, 1892.

INTRODUCTION.

The series of collections, of which this volume is a part, is made up of representative work of the women of the State of New York in periodical literature.

This literature has been classified under its conspicuous divisions—Poetry, Fiction, History, Art, Biography, Translation, Literary Criticism, and the like.

A woman of eminent success in each department has then been asked to make a collection of representative work in that department; to include in it an example of her own work, and to place her name upon the volume as its Editor.

These selections have been made, as far as possible, chronologically, beginning with the earliest work of the century, in order that the volumes may carry out the plan of the “Exhibit of Women’s Work in Literature in the State of New York,” of which they are an original part.

The aim of this Exhibit was to make a record of literary work, limited, through necessity, both by sex and locality, but, as far as possible, accurate and complete, and to preserve this record in the State Library in the Capitol at Albany.

It includes twenty-five hundred books, beginning with the works of Charlotte Ramsay Lennox, the first-born female author of the province of New York, published in London in 1759, closing with the pages of a translation of Herder, still wet from the press, and comprising the works of almost every author in the intervening one hundred and forty years.

It includes also three hundred papers read before the literary clubs of the State, a summary of the work of all writers for the press, and the folios which preserve the work of many able women who have not published books.

The women of the State of New York have had the honor of decorating and furnishing the Library of the Women’s Building. Believing the best equipment of a library to be literature, they have therefore prepared this Exhibit; and have made its character comprehensive and historic, in order that it may not be temporary, but that it may be preserved in the State Library, and may have permanent value for future lovers and students of Americana.

BLANCHE WILDER BELLAMY,

Chairman of the Committee on Literature of the Board of Women Managers of the State of New York.

Woman and the higher education

PREFACE ix Miss ANNA C. BRACKETT.✦

INTRODUCTION.✦

PREFACE ix Miss ANNA C. BRACKETT.

INTRODUCTION.