The Gleamer, A Critical Analysis

The meaning of education has changed and evolved over throughout time. At one point, education meant the learning and generally understand to live off the environment. This can be showcased upon visiting Native American text. However, there would be no greater example of the ever evolving definition of education than to look towards the lessons taught to the female gender of the time period. By examining the literature of the past you can see how what we now strive for all citizens was not the intended purpose of the woman’s education of the time. Upon reading this week’s assigned reading there are examples of this very subject. In a piece written by Judith Sargent Murray The Gleamer, which showcase the unfortunate situation of a new orphaned Miss Wellwood, one can see the showcased required education for a lady of her time and higher social standards. In the piece Mrs. Wellwood was stated to have been educated with care. You can deduct from the remaining context of this excerpt in …show more content…
This is highly showcased in the piece “The Gleamer. “ In Miss Worthington’s letter to Miss Melworth she describes Mr. Courtland “ a wretch, who ought never to have profaned a temple so sacred.” It appears letter on in Mrs, Wellwood’s letter that she only request the restoring of her virtue and the promises that Mr Cortand made to her before she found out he was married to anthoer women. In Mary Wollstonecraft’s writing she states that virtue was a posion that” incrusting morality eat away the substance”. However, as Mary Wollestone points out in her piece “, the impossibility of regaining respectability by a return to virtue, though men preserve theirs during the indulgence of vice. It was natural for women then to endeavour to preserve what once lost--was lost for ever, till this care swallowing up every other care, reputation for chastity, became the one thing needful to the sex.