Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), August 16, 1845, vol. 2, no. 6, p. ???, col. ?

[page 90, column 1, continued:]

The Duty of American Women to their Country. New York: Harper & Brothers.

This volume is put forth anonymously, and has no preface. We know not who is the author, nor any circumstance connected with its publication. It may be, however, the work of Mrs. Kirkland. At all events it is the work of some woman of very bold and vigorous intellect — possibly of Mrs. Child or Miss Fuller. Its propositions speak for themselves. The design is to arouse the country, and more especially its women, to the necessity of forwarding the cause of general education. Our deficiencies, in this respect, are vividly shown: — for example;

Look, then, at the indications in our census. In a population of fourteen milions, we can find one milllion adults who cannot read and write, and two million of children without schools. In a few years, then, if these children come on the stage with their present neglect, we shall have three millions of adults managing our state and national affairs, who cannot even read the Constitution they swear to support, nor a word in the Bible, nor any newspaper or book. Look at the West, where our dangers from foreign immigration are the greatest, and which, by its unparalleled increase, is soon to hold the sceptre of power. In Indiana and Illinois scarcely one half of the children have any schools. Missouri and Iowa send a similar or worse report. In Virginia, one quarter of the white adults cannot even write their names to their applications for marriage license. In North Carolina, more than half the adults cannot read or write. The whole South, in addition to her ignorant slaves, returns more than half her white children as without schools.

This is, indeed, a lamentable picture, and not the least distressing feature of it is its absolute truth. The remedy proposed, is the establisment of Seminaries for the education of teachers, as well female as male: — the superior qualifications of woman for educational tasks in common schools, being very decidedly shown — if Indeed there was ever any reasonable doubt on the subject.

The work is lucidly, earnestly, and vigorously written; and we recommend it to all readers sufficiently unprejudiced not to mistake ardor for folly — the enthusiastic for the visionary.