It is very interesting to see how the reason that women were being educated was to assume this role of “republican motherhood”. Women were allowed to learn once the men saw they could reap some sort benefit out of their education. Once the schools began to open their doors to women then the schools began to seek out female teachers. I agree with Norton in saying that teaching is one of the first jobs opened up to women on such a regular basis. Emma Willard argued that an educated woman made a better mother which is a sentiment I agree with I think all the members of the family benefit from having a smart mother. The report by the Boston board in 1841 gives three extremely valid reasons for why women were better teachers. The idea that women are naturally better with children, women are less distracted by the world and, last of all they are purest. The second reason had a part which I chose to omit because I found it to be extremely crude to think that way but I do not have a hard time believing that people actually felt that teaching was all women could do.
When it comes to the Pestalozzi methods it is very true that at a younger age most of the learning is hands on learning, where the children learn by doing and as we get older we spend more and more time at a desk. This idea of maternal teachers made me think of all the teachers that I’ve had since kindergarten and it wasn’t until the 6th or 7th grade that I had my first male teacher. It is interesting to see how schools ended up becoming more and more bureaucatic with the women teaching the students and then the men acting as the teachers boss. I think that it is good that women were given their place in society but as we see eventually it was wrong to try and limit women, they have done pretty much everything there is to do in the world. First it was the head of the classrooms and in some countries women have gone on to be heads of state.
