Mr. Everett, perhaps without due caution, advocated, last summer, the
affirmative of this question. With his accustomed eloquence, he urged on
the attention of Suleiman Bey the fact of the equal participation of the
sexes in the public-school system of Boston, while omitting to explain
to him that the equality is of very recent standing. No doubt, the
eminent Oriental would have been pleased to hear that this public
administration of the alphabet to females, on any terms, is an
institution but little more than a half-century old in the city of
Boston. It is well established by the early deeds and documents that a
large proportion of Puritan women could not write their own names; and
in Boston especially, for a hundred and fifty years, the public schools
included boys only. In the year 1789, however, the notable discovery was
made, that the average attendance of pupils from April to October was
only one half of that reported for the remainder of the year. This was
an obvious waste of money and accommodations, and it was therefore
proposed that female pupils should be annually introduced during this
intermediate period. Accordingly, school-girls, like other flowers,
blossomed in summer only; and this state of things lasted, with
but slight modification, for some forty years, according to the
School-Superintendent's Third Report. It was not till 1828 that all
distinctions were abolished in the Boston Common Schools; in the High
Schools lingering far later, sole vestige of the "good old times,"
before a mistaken economy overthrew the wholesome doctrine of M.
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