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ELIZABETH BLACKWELL. 85
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
To The Editors Of The English Woman's Jo...
him . in various recent payments , became bankrupt before these orders maturedand they were returnedprotesteda few days after
his death ; and , an agent in New York , with , whom , the greater part of their household furniture had been left for sale on their removal
from that city , sold the furniture and pocketed the proceeds . Bent was due for the dwelling-house occupied by the family , and for the
premises partly fitted up as a refinery ; the protested notes were to be made good ; doctor ' s and undertaker ' s bills were to be paid ( their
aunts had also fallen victims to the climate , and had died within a few weeks of their father ' s decease ) ; and the daily expenses of the
household were to be provided for ; demands that were all subsequentldischarged to the very last farthing .
thro The wn y group on their of nine own , exertions who , with , consisted their mother of three , were elder thus daug suddenl hters y ,
of whom Dr . Elizabeth , then in her eighteenth year , was the youngest ; two brothers , who were now obliged to leave their studies and begin
the world as clerks in mercantile houses ; and four younger children , of whom Dr . Emily was the eldestand whose support , with that of
their motherdevolved at that time , upon the three elder sisters . The latter , since the return of their governess to England , had
been accustomed , to take turns in carrying on the tuition of the other children ; and they immediately opened a boarding-school for
young ladies , as the only means of keeping the family circle unbroken while completing the education of its younger members .
Their position excited much sympathy ; their school was rapidly filled ; and they gradually surmounted the difficulties which had
surrounded them . But the excessive fatigue inseparable from the conscientious
discharge of the teacher ' s duty—especially in a country -where the ils were often idle and turbulent to a degree that would seem
incredibl pup e in England—the confinement and wearisorneness of school routineand the smallness of the remuneration which the teacher
receives , in return for an amount of labour and self-denial often much greater than that by which men attain to wealth and position
in business and in the learned professions , added to the fact that no other mode of loyment than that of teaching seemed to be
accessible to femal emp e effortprompted the sisters to frequent cogitation upon the narrowness , of the sphere within which women
compelled to earn their own living and that of others dependent upon them , are restricted , suggested questionings of the justice and
propriety of this restriction , and led them to frequent speculation as to the possibility of widening the scope of women ' s employments
by admission into the careers hitherto open only to men . They felt not onlthatthrown as they had been on their own resources ,
their possibilities y , of success would have been infinitely greater had
had they training been men and instead opportunity of women been , within but also their that rea , even ch , they as women would ,
Elizabeth Blackwell. 85
ELIZABETH BLACKWELL . 85
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1858, page 85, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041858/page/13/
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