Misc: Education of Females, Natchitoches Parish La
Submitted by:(Suzanne Shoemaker)
Source: Natchitoches Times January 8,1999
Many Thanks to the Natchitoches Times for giving permission to use this
article in the Natchitoches Archives




**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
**********************************************
 


Oct. 29, 1915

INTERESTING OLD PAPERS--ONE DATED IN 1837
   
     "Education of Women," Another matter before the public then as now.

     The editor is indebted to Miss Cecile Prudhomme of Campti for copies of
the old papers published in this parish.  They were subscribed for and left
in the papers of her forefather, Gabriel Prudhomme.

     One of the copies we have is No. 20, Vol. 1 of the Natchitoches Herald,
dated May 10, 1837.

     There are many interesting items in this issue of the Herald.

    Another matter before the public then as now was the education of women.
An article by Mrs. Moore read as follows:

EDUCATION OF FEMALES
     Since there is season when the youthful must cease to be young and the
beautiful to excite admiration, to learn how to grow old gracefully is
perhaps one of the rarest and most valuable arts that can be taught to women.
     And it must be confessed that it is a most severe trial for those women
to lay down beauty who have nothing else to take up.  It is for this sober
season of life that education should lay up its rich resources.  However
disregarded they may have been, they will be wanted now.
     When admirers fall way and flatters become mute, the mind will be driven
to retire into itself and if it find no entertainment at home, it will be
driven back upon the world with increasing force.  Yet forgetting this, do
we not seem to educate our daughters exclusively for the transient period
of youth, when it is the more mature life we ought to advert?  Do we not
educate them for a crowd and not for themselves?  For show and not for use?
 For time and not for eternity?

--Mrs. Moore