One of the Earliest Formal Debates on the Value of Education for Women Concludes that Education is Necessary For All Women and Their Daughters, 1827

19th Cent Women Education

Manuscripts & Autographs

Philis, Mr. Report of the Commission Charged to Examine Memoirs Relative to the Education of Women. Third Subject: Morality. 1827. This 1827 manuscript records one of the earliest sustained formal debates advocating systematic education for women across social classes. Structured as a commission evaluation of submitted memoirs, the text advances the argument that education should be universally accessible to women “from the daughter of the Prince to that of the most humble of the subjects,” asserting that the “elements of Language, and Calculations” are “necessary and indispensable to women in all stations.” At a time when formal education for girls was limited and higher education for women virtually nonexistent, the manuscript situates female instruction not as ornamental refinement but as moral and civic necessity.

Philis, Mr. Report of the Commission Charged to Examine Memoirs Relative to the Education of Women. Third Subject: Morality. 1827. Folio manuscript in paper boards. 68 pages of handwritten script in black ink. The manuscript is organized around three submitted theses: “The Education Best Adapted to Form A Good Mother of A Family Is That Received at Home”; “It is Well Known That The Bad Education Of Women, Does More Harm Than That of Men…”; and “To Instruct the Children, One Must Enlighten the Mothers.” While the framing reflects prevailing assumptions that motherhood constituted women’s primary social role, the author strategically reverses that premise, arguing that education is precisely what “nature formed women to be” capable of fulfilling their duties. Written one year after the opening of the first public high schools for girls in New York and Boston and more than a decade before women would begin earning college degrees, the manuscript provides early evidence of reformist thought that linked women’s education to broader civic improvement. Boards show wear with light soiling and scattered stains; manuscript evenly toned with occasional minor soiling; text clear and complete. Overall condition very good to good.

Item #15274

Price: $1,400.00