Observation Of Women's Education: Rush And Murray

Rush and Murray see two benefits of female education improvement of domestic skills and improvement of raising their children but differing from rush, however, Murray also sees female education as an opportunity for independence and improvement of self for women’s education. In 1787, Dr. Benjamin Rush spoke about improving women’s education at the Young Ladies Academy located in Philadelphia, his message was centered on improving women’s education in the guise of preparing women for domestic skills and as mothers to raise their children. Later, Judith Sargent Murray’s essay “Observations of Female Abilities” (1798), which passionately described the potential beyond domestic skills that women’s education would pose by improving women’s self, …show more content…
For example, educating women on bookkeeping in order to better accommodate their husbands to make better wives was an implication of improvemnt. Although, Rush wanted improvements for women’s education they were not allowed to be taught equal or advanced to their male counterpart. Particularly, white men were taught subjects such as philosophy and advanced arithmetic, while women were discouraged to be at equal level. Rush’s implications on women’s education can be assumed as men not wanting women to be in a position of power if given the opportunity to learn advanced study. Second, the benefits of expanding women’s education were to better the education of their children especially their male offspring and as school teachers. However, Rush wanted to further women’s education, he still wanted to keep women under the dominance of males and keep them within the domestic environment. But, when Murray wrote in “Observation of Female Abilities”, women are capable of balancing both, for example, the widow Birmingham who raised her children and ran her husband’s empire successfully after his