Page:Frances Shimer Record 38 4.djvu/15

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CHAPTER TWO -- CONTINUING EDUCATION

(Continued from preceding issue)

When Frances found that the study of medicine was denied her, she determined to enter normal school and devote some time to teaching. At first she seems to have thought that she might be able to pursue medical studies after teaching for a time. But, later she decided to give her whole life to forwarding education for women. It was characteristic of her inquiring mind that in her developing woman-hood she should have surveyed the status of women in the educational world. She found that for some time women had been emerging from their life and position as chattels of the other sex. A new spirit of independence was rife. Frances had probably read of a certain Margaret Conwell in her own county, Saratoga, who had been advertised by her husband as having "left his bed and board." The indignant Margaret retorted in a paid advertisement of her own. "He should have showed that he had a bed, for this is the first time I ever knew that he was the owner of one. Indeed I am now inclined to believe that he alludes to one of mine. He says I have left his board. Now he never provided any board except now and then a scanty meal of potatoes. As for running him in debt he need have no apprehension as no one will trust him where he is so unfortunate as to be known."

The very fact that Frances Wood wanted to study medicine shows the stirring of a spirit expansion in the desires and aspirations of the young women of the time. Her special interest in education can be traced back to some of the compositions of her early school life. Thus before she was sixteen we find an unfinished essay on "Female Education" in the notebook from which we quote,

In later years Frances got away from the use of "female" in describing women's education. That her school