Mary Lyon

Reading audio



2004-1-24

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ANNCR:

Welcome to People in America in VOA Special English. Every week
at this time, we tell the story of someone important in the history
of the United States. Today,

Steve Ember and Shirley Griffith tell about Mary Lyon. She was a
leader in women's education in the nineteenth century.

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VOICE ONE:

During the nineteenth century, women's education was not
considered important in the United States. Supporters of advanced
education 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 not
able to continue on with their education in private schools. If they
did, they often were not taught much except the French language, how
to 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 most
famous women in nineteenth century America. She believed that women
were teachers both in the home and in the classroom. And, she
believed that efforts to better educate young women also served God.
If women were better educated, she felt, they could teach in local
schools throughout the United States and in foreign countries.

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VOICE TWO:

Mary Lyon was born in Buckland,
Massachusetts, in Seventeen-Ninety-Seven. Her father died when she
was five years old. For Mary, hard work was a way of life. But she
later remembered with great pleasure her childhood years in the home
where she was born. This is how she described what she could see
from that house on a hill:

"The far-off mountains in all their grandeur, and the deep
valleys, and widely extended plains, and more than all, that little
village below, containing only a very few white houses, but more
than those young eyes had ever seen."

VOICE ONE:

At the age of four, Mary began walking to the nearest school
several kilometers away. Later, she began spending three months at a
time with friends and relatives so she could attend other area
schools. She helped clean and cook to pay for her stay.

When Mary was thirteen, her mother re-married and moved to
another town. Mary was left to care for her older brother who worked
on the family farm. He paid her a dollar a week. She saved it to pay
for her education. Mary's love of learning was so strong that she
worked and saved her small amount of pay so she could go to school
for another few months.

Mary began her first teaching job at a one-room local school
teaching children for the summer. She was seventeen years old. She
was paid seventy-five cents a week. She also was given meals and a
place to live.

Mary Lyon was not a very successful teacher at first. She did not
have much control over her students. She always was ready to laugh
with them. Yet she soon won their parents' respect with her skills.

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VOICE TWO:

When Mary Lyon was twenty years old, she began a long period of
study and teaching. A new private school opened in the village of
Ashfield, Massachusetts. It was called Sanderson Academy. Mary
really wanted to attend. She sold book coverings she had made. And
she used everything she had saved from her pay as a teacher. This
was enough for her to begin attending Sanderson Academy.

At Sanderson, Mary began to study more difficult subjects. These
included science, history and Latin. A friend who went to school
with Mary wrote of her "gaining knowledge by handfuls." It is said
that Mary memorized a complete book about the Latin language in
three days. Mary later wrote it was at Sanderson that she received
the base of her education.

VOICE ONE:

After a year at Sanderson Academy, Mary decided that her
handwriting was not good enough to be read clearly. She was a
twenty-one-year-old woman. But she went to the local public school
and sat among the children so she could learn better writing skills.

In Eighteen-Twenty-One, Mary Lyon went to another private school
where she was taught by Reverend Joseph Emerson. Mary said he talked
to women "as if they had brains." She praised his equal treatment of
men and women when it came to educating them.

VOICE TWO:

Three years later, Mary Lyon opened a school for young women in
the 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 of
teaching, including holding discussion groups where students
exchange ideas.

Mary said it was while teaching at Buckland that she first
thought of founding a private school open to daughters of farmers
and skilled workers. She wanted education, not profits, to be the
most important thing about the school. At that time, schools of
higher learning usually were supported by people interested in
profits 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 school
she had started. She joined a close friend, Zilpah Grant, who had
begun another private school, Ipswich Female Seminary.

At Ipswich, Mary taught and was responsible for
one-hundred-thirty students. It was one of the best schools at the
time. But it lacked financial support. Mary said the lack of support
was because of "good men's fear of greatness in women." Zilpah Grant
and Mary Lyon urged that Ipswich be provided buildings so that the
school might become permanent. However, their appeal failed.

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VOICE TWO:

Mary resigned from Ipswich. She helped to organize another
private 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 school
would own its own property. It would be guided by an independent
group of directors. Its finances would be the responsibility of the
directors, not of investors seeking profit. The school would not
depend on any one person to continue. And, the students would share
in cleaning and cooking to keep costs down.

VOICE ONE:

Mary Lyon got a committee of advisers to help her in planning and
building the school. She collected the first thousand dollars for
the school from women in and around the town of Ipswich. At one
point, she even lent the committee some of her own money. She did
not earn any money until she became head of the new school.

Mary Lyon opened Mount Holyoke Seminary for Women in
Eighteen-Thirty-Seven. It was in the town of South Hadley,
Massachusetts. She had raised more than twelve-thousand dollars. It
was enough to build a five-story building.

Four teachers and the first class of eighty young women lived and
studied in the building when the school opened. By the next year,
the number of students had increased to one-hundred-sixteen. Mary
knew the importance of what had been established -- the first
independent school for the higher education of women.

VOICE TWO:

The school continued to grow. More students began to attend. The
size of the building was increased. And, all of the students were
required to study for four years instead of three.

Mary Lyon was head of the school for almost twelve years. She
died in Eighteen-Forty-Nine. She was fifty-two years old.

She left behind a school of higher education for women. It had no
debt. And it had support for the future provided by thousands of
dollars in gifts.

In Eighteen-Ninety-Three, under a state law, Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary became a college. Mount Holyoke College was the first
college to offer women the same kind of education as was offered to
men.

VOICE ONE:

People who have studied Mary Lyon say she was not fighting a
battle of equality between men and women. Yet she knew she wanted
more for women.

Her efforts led to the spread of higher education for women in
the United States. Historians say she was the strongest influence on
the education of American young people during the middle of the
nineteenth century. Her influence lasted as the many students from
Mary Lyon's schools went out to teach others.

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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 time
for another People in American program on the Voice of America.