Full download ebooks at https://ebookmeta.

com

Wavelet Analysis: Basic Concepts and

Applications 1st Edition Sabrine Arfaoui

For dowload this book click link below

https://ebookmeta.com/product/wavelet-analysis-basic-
concepts-and-applications-1st-edition-sabrine-arfaoui/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWLOAD NOW
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Environmental Biotechnology Basic Concepts and

Applications 1st Edition Viswanath Buddolla

https://ebookmeta.com/product/environmental-biotechnology-basic-
concepts-and-applications-1st-edition-viswanath-buddolla/

Introductory Immunology: Basic Concepts for

Interdisciplinary Applications. 3rd Edition Actor

https://ebookmeta.com/product/introductory-immunology-basic-
concepts-for-interdisciplinary-applications-3rd-edition-actor/

Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Data Analysis

Concepts and Applications 5th Edition Johan Gabrielsson

https://ebookmeta.com/product/pharmacokinetic-and-
pharmacodynamic-data-analysis-concepts-and-applications-5th-
edition-johan-gabrielsson/

Big Data Analysis for Green Computing: Concepts and

Applications 1st Edition Rohit Sharma

https://ebookmeta.com/product/big-data-analysis-for-green-
computing-concepts-and-applications-1st-edition-rohit-sharma/
Wavelet Numerical Method and Its Applications in
Nonlinear Problems You He Zhou

https://ebookmeta.com/product/wavelet-numerical-method-and-its-
applications-in-nonlinear-problems-you-he-zhou/

Primary Mathematics 3A Hoerst

https://ebookmeta.com/product/primary-mathematics-3a-hoerst/

Heterophase Polymerization Basic Concepts and

Principles 1st Edition Hugo Hernandez

https://ebookmeta.com/product/heterophase-polymerization-basic-
concepts-and-principles-1st-edition-hugo-hernandez/

Hydrochemistry Basic Concepts and Exercises 2nd Edition

Eckhard Worch

https://ebookmeta.com/product/hydrochemistry-basic-concepts-and-
exercises-2nd-edition-eckhard-worch/

Rowland and Tozer s Clinical Pharmacokinetics and

Pharmacodynamics Concepts and Applications Concepts and
Applications 5th Edition Derendorf

https://ebookmeta.com/product/rowland-and-tozer-s-clinical-
pharmacokinetics-and-pharmacodynamics-concepts-and-applications-
concepts-and-applications-5th-edition-derendorf/
Wavelet Analysis
 Wavelet Analysis
Basic Concepts and Applications

Sabrine Arfaoui
University of Monastir, Tunisia
University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Anouar Ben Mabrouk

University of Kairouan, Tunisia
University of Monastir, Tunisia
University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Carlo Cattani
University of Tuscia, Italy
First edition published 2021
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

and by CRC Press

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
© 2021 Sabrine Arfaoui, Anouar Ben Mabrouk, and Carlo Cattani
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

The right of Sabrine Arfaoui, Anouar Ben Mabrouk, and Carlo Cattani to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot
assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers
have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright
holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowl-
edged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or
utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including pho-
tocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission
from the publishers.

For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www.copyright.com or contact the
Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. For works that are
not available on CCC please contact mpkbookspermissions@tandf.co.uk

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Arfaoui, Sabrine, author. | Ben Mabrouk, Anouar, author. | Cattani,

Carlo, 1954- author.
Title: Wavelet analysis : basic concepts and applications / Sabrine
Arfaoui, University of Monastir, Anouar Ben Mabrouk, University of
Kairouan, Carlo Cattani, University of Tuscia.
Description: Boca Raton : Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020050757 (print) | LCCN 2020050758 (ebook) | ISBN
9780367562182 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003096924 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Wavelets (Mathematics)
Classification: LCC QA403.3 .A74 2021 (print) | LCC QA403.3 (ebook) | DDC
515/.2433--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050757
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050758

ISBN: 978-0-367-56218-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-09692-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Latin Modern font

by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents

List of Figures ix

Preface xi

Chapter 1  Introduction 1

Chapter 2  Wavelets on Euclidean Spaces 5

2.1 INTRODUCTION 5
2.2 WAVELETS ON R 6
2.2.1 Continuous wavelet transform 7
2.2.2 Discrete wavelet transform 10
2.3 MULTI-RESOLUTION ANALYSIS 11
2.4 WAVELET ALGORITHMS 13
2.5 WAVELET BASIS 16
2.6 MULTIDIMENSIONAL REAL WAVELETS 21
2.7 EXAMPLES OF WAVELET FUNCTIONS AND MRA 22
2.7.1 Haar wavelet 22
2.7.2 Faber–Schauder wavelet 24
2.7.3 Daubechies wavelets 25
2.7.4 Symlet wavelets 27
2.7.5 Spline wavelets 27
2.7.6 Anisotropic wavelets 29
2.7.7 Cauchy wavelets 30
2.8 EXERCISES 31

Chapter 3  Wavelets extended 35

3.1 AFFINE GROUP WAVELETS 35

3.2 MULTIRESOLUTION ANALYSIS ON THE INTERVAL 37

v
vi  Contents

3.2.1 Monasse–Perrier construction 37

3.2.2 Bertoluzza–Falletta construction 37
3.2.3 Daubechies wavelets versus Bertoluzza–Faletta 39
3.3 WAVELETS ON THE SPHERE 40
3.3.1 Introduction 40
3.3.2 Existence of scaling functions 41
3.3.3 Multiresolution analysis on the sphere 43
3.3.4 Existence of the mother wavelet 44
3.4 EXERCISES 47

Chapter 4  Clifford wavelets 51

4.1 INTRODUCTION 51
4.2 DIFFERENT CONSTRUCTIONS OF CLIFFORD ALGEBRAS 52
4.2.1 Clifford original construction 53
4.2.2 Quadratic form-based construction 53
4.2.3 A standard construction 54
4.3 GRADUATION IN CLIFFORD ALGEBRAS 56
4.4 SOME USEFUL OPERATIONS ON CLIFFORD ALGEBRAS 57
4.4.1 Products in Clifford algebras 57
4.4.2 Involutions on a Clifford algebra 58
4.5 CLIFFORD FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 60
4.6 EXISTENCE OF MONOGENIC EXTENSIONS 67
4.7 CLIFFORD-FOURIER TRANSFORM 70
4.8 CLIFFORD WAVELET ANALYSIS 76
4.8.1 Spin-group based Clifford wavelets 76
4.8.2 Monogenic polynomial-based Clifford wavelets 82
4.9 SOME EXPERIMENTATIONS 92
4.10 EXERCISES 96

Chapter 5  Quantum wavelets 99

5.1 INTRODUCTION 99
5.2 BESSEL FUNCTIONS 99
5.3 BESSEL WAVELETS 105
5.4 FRACTIONAL BESSEL WAVELETS 107
5.5 QUANTUM THEORY TOOLKIT 119
 Contents  vii

5.6 SOME QUANTUM SPECIAL FUNCTIONS 123

5.7 QUANTUM WAVELETS 127
5.8 EXERCISES 134

Chapter 6  Wavelets in statistics 137

6.1 INTRODUCTION 137

6.2 WAVELET ANALYSIS OF TIME SERIES 138
6.2.1 Wavelet time series decomposition 138
6.2.2 The wavelet decomposition sample 140
6.3 WAVELET VARIANCE AND COVARIANCE 141
6.4 WAVELET DECIMATED AND STATIONARY TRANSFORMS 144
6.4.1 Decimated wavelet transform 144
6.4.2 Wavelet stationary transform 145
6.5 WAVELET DENSITY ESTIMATION 145
6.5.1 Orthogonal series for density estimation 145
6.5.2 δ-series estimators of density 147
6.5.3 Linear estimators 148
6.5.4 Donoho estimator 150
6.5.5 Hall-Patil estimator 150
6.5.6 Positive density estimators 151
6.6 WAVELET THRESHOLDING 152
6.6.1 Linear case 152
6.6.2 General case 154
6.6.3 Local thresholding 155
6.6.4 Global thresholding 155
6.6.5 Block thresholding 156
6.6.6 Sequences thresholding 156
6.7 APPLICATION TO WAVELET DENSITY ESTIMATIONS 157
6.7.1 Gaussian law estimation 158
6.7.2 Claw density wavelet estimators 159
6.8 EXERCISES 160

Chapter 7  Wavelets for partial differential equations 163

7.1 INTRODUCTION 163

7.2 WAVELET COLLOCATION METHOD 165
viii  Contents

7.3 WAVELET GALERKIN APPROACH 166

7.4 REDUCTION OF THE CONNECTION COEFFICIENTS NUMBER 171
7.5 TWO MAIN APPLICATIONS IN SOLVING PDEs 174
7.5.1 The Dirichlet Problem 174
7.5.2 The Neumann Problem 176
7.6 APPENDIX 179
7.7 EXERCISES 180

Chapter 8  Wavelets for fractal and multifractal functions 183

8.1 INTRODUCTION 183

8.2 HAUSDORFF MEASURE AND DIMENSION 184
8.3 WAVELETS FOR THE REGULARITY OF FUNCTIONS 186
8.4 THE MULTIFRACTAL FORMALISM 189
8.4.1 Frisch and Parisi multifractal formalism conjecture 189
8.4.2 Arneodo et al wavelet-based multifractal formalism 190
8.5 SELF-SIMILAR-TYPE FUNCTIONS 192
8.6 APPLICATION TO FINANCIAL INDEX MODELING 201
8.7 APPENDIX 205
8.8 EXERCISES 205

Bibliography 209

Index 237
List of Figures

2.1 Decomposition algorithm. 15

2.2 Inverse algorithm. 16
2.3 Haar scaling and wavelet functions. 24
2.4 Schauder scaling and wavelet functions. 26
2.5 Some Daubechies scaling functions and associated wavelets. 27
2.6 Some symlet scaling functions and associated wavelets. 28

4.1 Wedge product of vectors. 58

4.2 Some 2D Clifford wavelets. 93
4.3 ψ1,2 (x)-Clifford wavelet 1-level decomposition of Mohamed Amine’s
photo. 94
4.4 The 3D ψ3,3 (x) Clifford wavelet brain processing at the level J = 2. 95

5.1 Graphs of Bessel functions Jv of the first kind for v = 0, 1, 2, 3. 102

5.2 Graphs of Bessel functions Yv of the second kind for v = 0, 1, 2, 3. 103

6.1 The normal reduced and centered density N (0, 1). 158
6.2 The gaussian density and its wavelet estimator. 159
6.3 Claw density. 159
6.4 Claw density wavelet estimator at the level J = 4. 160

8.1 Wavelet decomposition of the SP500 signal at the level J = 4. 203

8.2 SP500 spectrum of singularities. 204
8.3 Original SP500 and self-similar-type model. 204

ix
Preface

Nowadays, wavelets are applied almost everywhere in science. Both pure fields, such
as mathematics and theoretical physics, and applied ones, such as signal/image pro-
cessing, finance and engineering, apply wavelets. Although the references and/or the
documentation about wavelets and their applications are wide, it seems that with the
advancement of technology and the appearance of many phenomena in nature and in
life there still exist some places for more efforts and developments to understand the
new problems, as the existing wavelet methods do not provide good understanding
of them. The new COVID-19 pandemic may be one of the challenges that should be
understood.
On the other hand, especially for young researchers, existing references such as
books in wavelet theory are somehow very restricted. The majority are written for
specific communities. This is, in fact, not surprising and may be due to the necessity
of developing such references to overcome the concerned problems in that time.
Next, with the inclusion of wavelet theory in academic studies such as in mas-
ter’s and PhD programs, the scientific and academic communities have had a great
need to develop references in other forms. Students and generally researchers need
sometimes self-containing references responding to their need, to avoid losing time
in redeveloping existing results, which is a necessary step for both the generalization
and the experiments.
The present volume is composed of eight chapters. In the first introductory chap-
ter, a literal introduction is developed discussing generally the topic. Chapter 2 is
concerned with the presentation of the original developments of wavelet theory on
the real Euclidean space. This is also a preliminary chapter that will be of great help
for young researchers. Chapter 3 is more specialized and constitutes a continuation of
the previous one, in which some extending cases of wavelet theory and applications
have been provided. Chapter 4 is a very specialized part that is developed for the
first time to our knowledge. It is concerned with the presentation of wavelet theory in
a general functional framework based on Clifford algebras. This is very important as
these algebras contain all the Euclidean structures and gather them in one structure
to facilitate calculus. Readers will notice clearly that Clifford wavelet theory induces
naturally the Euclidean ones such as real and complex numbers, circles and spheres.
Chapter 5 is a continuation of the development of the theory in specialized fields
such as quantum theory. Next, in Chapter 6, statistical application of wavelets has
been reviewed. Topics such as density estimation, thresholding concepts, variance and
covariance have been detailed. Chapter 7 is devoted to wavelets applied in solving
partial differential equations. Recall that this field needs many assumptions on the
functional bases applied, especially the explicit form of the basis elements and their

xi
xii  Preface

regularities. The last chapter is devoted to the link and/or the use of wavelet theory
in characterizing fractal and multifractal functions and their application. Each chap-
ter contains a series of exercises and experimentations to help understand the theory
and also to show the utility of wavelets.
The present book stems, in fact, from lectures and papers on the topics developed,
which have been gathered, re-developed, improved and sometimes completed with
necessary missing developments. However, naturally it is not exhaustive and should
be always criticized, sometimes corrected and improved by readers. So, we accept and
wait for any comments and suggestions.
We also want to stress the fact that we have provided in some chapters, especially
those on preliminary concepts that may be useful to young researchers, some exercises
and applications that are simple to handle with the aim to help the readers understand
the theory. We apologize if there are simpler applications and details that may be
more helpful to the readers but that have been left out from inclusion in this book.
This, in fact, needs more time and may induce delays in the publication of the book.
We hope that with the present form the readers become acquainted with the topics
presented.
The aim of this book is to provide a basic and self-contained introduction to
the ideas underpinning wavelet theory and its diversified applications. Readers of
our proposed book would include master’s degree students, PhD students and se-
nior researchers. It may also serve scientists and research workers from industrial
settings, where modeling real-world phenomena and data needs wavelets such as fi-
nance, medicine, engineering, transport, images and signals. Henceforth, the book
will interest practitioners and theorists alike. For theorists, rigorous mathematical
developments will be presented with necessary prerequisites that make the book self-
containing. For the practitioner, often interested in model building and analysis, we
provide the cornerstone ideas.
As with any scientific production and reference, the present volume could not have
been realized without the help of many persons. We thus owe thanks to many persons
who have helped us in any direction such as encouragements, scientific discussions
and documentation. We thank the Taylor & Francis Publishing Group for giving us
the opportunity to write and publish the present work. We also would like to express
our gratitude to our professors, teachers, colleagues, and universities. Without their
help and efforts, no such work might be realized. We would also like to thank all the
members of the publishing house, especially the editorial staff for the present volume,
Callum Fraser and Mansi Kabra, for their hospitality, cooperation, collaboration and
for the time they have spent on our project.
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Wavelets were discovered in the eighteenth century, essentially in pertroleum extrac-

tion. They have induced a new type of analysis extending the Fourier one. Recall that
Fourier analysis has been for long a time the essential mathematical tool, especially in
harmonic analysis and related applications such as physics, engineering, signal/image
processing and PDEs. Next, wavelets were introduced as new extending mathemat-
ical tools to generalize the Fourier one and to overcome, in some ways, the disad-
vantages of Fourier analysis. For a large community, especially non-mathematicians
and non-physicists, a wavelet may be defined in the most simple sense as a wave
function that decays rapidly and has a zero mean.
Compared to the Fourier theory, wavelets are mathematical functions permitting
themselves to cut up data into different components relative to the frequency spec-
trum and next focus on these components somehow independently, extracting their
characteristics and lifting to the original data. One main advantage of wavelets is the
fact that they are more able than Fourier modes to analyze discontinuities and/or
singularities efficiently (see [20], [177], [218], [248], [279], [295], [305]).
Wavelets have been also developed independently in the fields of mathematics,
quantum physics, electrical engineering and seismic geology. Next, interchanges be-
tween these fields have yielded more understanding of the theory and more and more
bases as well as applications such as image compression, turbulence, human vision,
radar and earthquake.
Nowadays, wavelets have become reputable and successful tools in quasi all do-
mains. The particularity in a wavelet basis is that all its elements are deduced from
one source function known as the mother wavelet. Next, such a mother gives rise
to all the elements necessary to analyze objects by simple actions of translation,
dilatation and rotation. The last parameter was introduced by Antoine and his col-
laborators ([11], [13]) to obtain some directional selectivity of the wavelet transform
in higher dimensions. Indeed, unlike Fourier analysis, there are different ways to de-
fine multidimensional wavelets. Directional wavelets based on the rotation parameter
just evoked. Another class is based on tensor products of one-dimensional wavelets.
Also, some wavelets are related to manifolds, essentially spheres, where the idea is
based on the geometric structure of the surface where the data lies. This gives rise to

1
2  Wavelet Analysis: Basic Concepts and Applications

the so-called isotropic and anisotropic wavelets (see [11], [12], [20], [205], [218], [219],
[220], [229], [230], [248], [279], [295], [305], [357], [358], [363]).
Wavelet theory provides for functional spaces and time series good bases, allow-
ing their decomposition into spaces associated with different horizons known as the
levels of decomposition. A wavelet basis is a family of functions obtained from one
function known as the mother wavelet, by translations and dilations. Due to the
power of their theory, wavelets have many applications in different domains such as
mathematics, physics, electrical engineering and seismic geology. This tool permits
the representation of L2 -functions in a basis well localized in time and in frequency.
Wavelets are also associated with many special functions such as orthogonal poly-
nomials and hypergeometric series. The most well known may be the Bessel functions
that have been developed in both classic theory of Bessel functional analysis and the
modified versions in fractional and quantum calculus. As its name indicates, Bessel
wavelets are related to Bessel special function. Historically, special functions differ
from elementary ones such as powers, roots, trigonometric and their inverses, mainly
with the limitations that these latter classes are known for. Many fundamental prob-
lems such as orbital motion, simultaneous oscillatory chains and spherical body grav-
itational potential were not best described using elementary functions. This makes
it necessary to extend elementary functions’ classes to more general ones that may
describe well unresolved problems.
Wavelets are also developed and applied in financial time series such as market
indices and exchange rates. In [42], for example, a study of the largest transaction
financial market was carried out. The exchange market gave some high-frequency
data. Compared to other markets, such data can be available at long periods and
with high frequency. The data were detected for very small periods, which means
that the market is also liquid. Until 1990, economists were interested in intra-daily
data because of which the detection of some behaviors did not appear in the daily
analysis of data such as homogeneity.
A well-known hypothesis in finance is the homogeneity of markets where all in-
vestigators have almost the same behavior. The idea of nonhomogeneous markets is
more recent, and it suggests that investigators have different perceptions and differ-
ent laws. For the exchange market, for example, investigators can differ in profiles,
geographic localizations and also in institutional constraints. Another natural sug-
gestion can be done about traders. Naturally, traders investigating at short time in-
tervals allow some high-frequency behaviors in the change market. Long-time traders
are interested in the general tendency and the volatility of the market along a mi-
croscopic greed. Short-time traders, however, are interested in fractional perceptions
and so in macroscopic greed. This leads to the wavelet analysis of financial time
series.
Recently, other models have been introduced in modeling financial time series
by means of fractals, which are in turn strongly related to wavelets. For example,
in Olsen & Associates, operating the largest financial database, has noticed that the
tick frequency has strongly increased in one decade, causing problems in studying the
time series extracted from such a database. Such problems can be due to transmission
delays, input errors and machine damages. So, some filtering procedure has to be done
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 A year and a half before this, namely, in January, 1839, the
Georgia Female College (now the Wesleyan Female College) was
opened at Macon, Ga. It had from the beginning the power of
conferring degrees, and eleven young women took the degree of A.B.
in 1840. It is commonly said that this is the first college for women
that ever existed. That it was called a college was doubtless merely
owing to the politeness of the Georgia Legislature. I have not been
able to find out what the course of study consisted in at that time, but
at present Harkness’ First Year in Latin is the only preparation in
languages required for entering the freshman class, and plane
geometry is studied during the sophomore year. It is not likely that
the course was better than this in 1840, and hence it is plain that
then as now it was a college only in name,[20] and not in any way
superior to Mrs. Lincoln Phelps’s more modest Patapsco Institute.
The years about 1840 seem to have been a period of general
awakening in the South in regard to the importance of the education
of women. The Judson Institute was founded by the Baptist State
Convention of Alabama in 1839; the “first incorporated college for
women in North Carolina,” the Greensborough Female College
(Methodist), obtained its charter in 1838, but was not opened for the
reception of students until 1846; in Maryland, the Frederick Female
Seminary was incorporated in 1840 and opened in 1843. St. Mary’s
School, at Raleigh, N. C., was opened in 1842.
But it is the Moravians in the South, as well as in the North, who
have been foremost among the religious denominations in the
establishing of schools for girls of a thorough, if of an elementary,
type. The devotion of Moravian parents to missionary enterprises
made it necessary for them to have schools in which their children
might find a substitute for family life, together with such teaching as
they were thought to require. “Parental training, thorough
instruction in useful knowledge, and scrupulous attention to
religious culture were the characteristics of their early schools,” and
are the main features of the five institutions of higher learning which
are still carried on by that Church. The Salem Female Academy, in
the northwestern part of the State of North Carolina, among the foot-
hills of the Blue Ridge, was opened in 1804. The curriculum
consisted of reading, grammar, writing, arithmetic, history,
geography, German, plain needlework, music, drawing, and
ornamental needlework. Between six and seven thousand pupils
have been educated in this school. The course is still very low; the
requirements for admission into the junior class are arithmetic to the
end of simple interest, geometry to quadrilaterals, and one book of
Cæsar. But the instruction seems to be thorough, and the catalogue
exhibits a freedom from pretense which is very refreshing. The
author of the “History of Education in North Carolina,”[21] says: “The
influence of the Salem Academy has been widespread. For many
years it was the only institution of repute in the South for female
education.... A great many of its alumnæ have become teachers and
heads of seminaries and academies, carrying the thorough and
painstaking methods of this school into their own institutions. It is
probably owing to the influence of the Salem Academy that
preparatory institutions for the education of girls are more numerous
in the South and, as a rule, better equipped than are similar
institutions for boys.”
The war was the occasion of a serious break in the education of
woman in the South and of a serious loss in the small amount of
funds that had been accumulated for their schools. The Georgia
Female College, however, went on with its work without
interruption, with the exception of two or three weeks; the
Confederate authorities were at one time on the point of seizing it for
a hospital, but were restrained by an injunction from the civil courts,
on the ground that the college was the residence of several private
families, and that many of the boarding pupils were unable to return
to their homes, or even to communicate with their parents, on
account of the general disruption of the railroads.[22] The Salem
Academy, also, was overcrowded with students during the war, sent
as much for shelter and protection as for education. After the war,
most of the existing schools for girls were reopened, and a large
number of new ones have been established since that time.
 COLLEGIATE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN
THE SOUTH.
Most people would probably be ready to say that except for the
newly founded Woman’s College in Baltimore and Tulane University,
the collegiate education of women does not exist in the South. But as
matter of fact, there are no less than one hundred and fifty
institutions in the South which are authorized by the Legislatures of
their respective States to confer the regular college degrees upon
women. Of these, forty-one are co-educational, eighty-eight are for
women alone, and twenty-one are for colored persons of both sexes.
The bureau of education makes no attempt to go behind the verdict
of the State Legislatures, but on looking over the catalogues of all
these institutions[23] it is, as might have been expected, easy to see
that the great majority of them are not in any degree colleges, in the
ordinary sense of the word. Not a single one of the so-called female
colleges presents a real college course, and many of the co-
educational colleges are colleges only in name. The female colleges,
however, easily fall into two distinct classes; not a few of them offer a
course such that the students who are entering upon the junior year
are, in a general way, as well fitted as those who are just admitted to
the freshman year of a regular college. This kind of college there will
be such constant occasion to speak about that it is necessary to coin a
new word for it, and I propose to call them semi-colleges. The course
is such that two years of the work of a regular college is done instead
of four, and by a regular college I mean one which comes up to the
standard set by the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ for admission
into its ranks.
As there will be several references to the standard of scholarship
set by the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, I add here the
requirements for admission into the freshman class of any college
the graduates of which are recognized as eligible for membership.
 In Latin Cæsar (four books).
Æneid (six books).
Cicero (seven orations).
In Greek[24] Anabasis (three books).
Iliad (three books).
In Mathematics Arithmetic.
Algebra through quadratics.
Plane geometry.
The Southern colleges which attain the rank of a semi-college I
shall speak of with more detail farther on. The real colleges for
women in the South consist of the Woman’s College of Baltimore and
the co-educational colleges (including in that term those in which the
management and the degrees are the same for the men and the
women, though the recitations may be conducted separately). Of
these, the University of Texas, the Tulane University (which is the
State university of Louisiana), the University of Mississippi, and the
Columbian University in Washington are the important ones. The
admission of women into all of these universities is of very recent
date, and may be taken as an indication of a general movement in
favor of a greater degree of generosity toward women, which may, in
time, sweep over the entire South. The geographical distribution of
these entering wedges is worthy of note. Baltimore and Washington
on the north, the University of Missouri on the west, the State
Universities of the three States of the extreme southwest,—add to
this the fact that the State of Florida has every one of its four colleges
for men open to women, and that it has not a single girls’ seminary of
the old-fashioned type, and it may well be believed that the modern
idea of what a woman requires in the way of education is destined to
close in upon the entire Southern country, and that the contentment
which Southern women have hitherto shown with the unsubstantial
parts of learning will eventually be replaced by more far-reaching
claims. The University of Virginia is the very mold and glass of form
for all the other schools and colleges of the South, and if that were to
throw down the barriers which it now keeps up against the
unobtrusive sex, it might be considered that the battle was already
won. But the University of Virginia is far from being unimpregnable;
the chairman of its faculty writes me:
“In reply to your interesting[25] letter of November 25, ’89, I would
say that opinion is much divided both in our faculty and in our board
of visitors on the question of opening this university to women.”
There is at this moment no way in which any one who wished to
benefit women could do so more effectively than by offering this
university a handsome endowment on condition of its terminating
this state of indecision in the right way. The Johns Hopkins
University has lately accepted a gift of a hundred thousand dollars
from a woman; it remains to be seen whether it will show its
appreciation of this act of generosity on the part of the self-forgetful
sex by opening its doors to women. Whatever the result of the next
few years may be upon the history of the education of women in the
South, there can be no doubt that the situation at the present
moment is far more hopeful than it was ten or even five years ago,
and far more hopeful than any one would have believed who has not
recently looked into the matter.
For the present, the Woman’s College of Baltimore is the only
representative in the South of separate education for women of a
collegiate grade. This college was established by the Methodist
Church (aided by liberal endowments from a number of enthusiastic
advocates of the higher education,—first among them the Rev. John
F. Goucher) for the purpose of providing women with the best
attainable facilities for securing liberal culture. It is the intention to
increase the endowment to two millions of dollars, exclusive of the
value of the buildings,—this is stated to be necessary in order to meet
the objects which the incorporators have in view. There are at
present nine professors and associate professors, together with other
instructors; there are laboratories and lecture-rooms, a spacious and
carefully planned boarding-hall, and a gymnasium which contains a
swimming pool and running track, and which is fitted with the best
imported appliances for both general and special gymnastic
movements. The wealth of the South is becoming so great that there
is no reason why thoroughly equipped colleges like this should not
spring up in various quarters.
I have received the most emphatic testimony as to the good
standing of the women in the best of the men’s colleges to which they
have been admitted. Professor Fristoe, of Columbian University,
writes me:
“In 1884 women were admitted to the medical and scientific
departments of this university, and in 1887 to the academic, except
to the preparatory school. We have eleven ladies in the academic
department, seven in the medical, and seven in the scientific. We
admitted them simply because there seemed to be a demand for it,
and because we could find no objection. The girls admitted have
been, without exception, superior students. They have had no
injurious effect, but the reverse, and we find no inconvenience from
our course. We have had so far only two who finished the course in
the Corcoran Scientific School, but they were very fine scholars. One
of them excelled especially in mathematics, the other in mental
philosophy and such subjects. I am rather proud of the girls.”
The italics are not mine. Professor Adison Hogue, of the University
of Mississippi, writes me:
“Women are admitted here because the board of trustees gave
them the privilege some years ago. I know of no other reason than
that. Not many avail themselves of the opportunity, especially as the
State for some years past has had, at Columbus, an industrial
institute and college solely for women. This year we have eleven in
attendance here; in each of my previous three years the number was
five, Their standing averages above that of the boys, I think. In ’85
and ’87 the first honor was taken by young ladies; and in our present
sophomore class a slender girl is spoken of as the ‘first honor man.’
Their social standing is in no way impaired by their coming here,
although the plan of mixed education is not greatly in favor, as the
small number shows.”
Professor Halsted, of the University of Texas, says, in his report to
the Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Several young ladies have
shown marked ability in the acquirement of the newer and more
abstruse developments of mathematics, for example, quaternions.”
The president of the H. Sophie Newcomb College, which is a
department of the Tulane University of Louisiana, has a larger
number of students upon which to base his conclusions. He writes:
“When the college was inaugurated two years ago, it was
discovered that very few of the applicants for admission were
qualified to undertake a regular college course. The schools of this
city (mostly private), which they had previously attended, had not
hitherto arranged their courses of study with reference to advanced
or college work, and had not therefore adopted any fixed standard of
acquirement.... The grade of the present freshman class is fully a year
and a half in advance of that which entered two years ago, and at the
same time there has been a steady increase in numbers. The greatest
gain has been shown in mathematics, science, and Latin. Our
advanced classes are doing excellent work in calculus and analytical
geometry, laboratory work in chemistry and biology, etc.... While I
can testify from experience to the equal ability of the Louisiana
young women with those in the East or elsewhere in mathematical,
scientific, or other studies, yet on account of the social pressure, and
long established customs which demand early graduations, we must
be content to see our institution develop more slowly than it would
otherwise do.”
I give in Appendix C, Table I., a list of the co-educational colleges
in the Southern States, prepared for me by the Bureau of Education
from the manuscript statistics for 1889–90. The following so-called
colleges have in no sense a proper equipment nor a proper course of
study for enabling them to deserve the name of college: Eminence,
Classical and Business, South Kentucky, (Ky.); Keachie, (La.);
Florida Conference and St. John’s River (Fla.); Western Maryland,
(Md.); Kavanagh, (Miss.); Salado, Hope, (Tex.) That leaves the
following number of students who are in the collegiate departments
of real, white, co-educational colleges in the South:
 Alabama 1
Arkansas 3
22
District of Columbia 3
25
Florida 1
4
Georgia 30
Kentucky 24
Louisiana 77
Maryland 25
Mississippi 11
North Carolina 53
South Carolina 10
Tennessee 34
16
28
10
Texas 40
20
70
40
175
West Virginia 32
1

Texas 345
Louisiana 77
Other States 328

Total 750
This table discloses the remarkable fact that there are 750 women
studying in such men’s colleges in the South as have a decent claim
to the name of college, and also that Virginia is the only State in the
South that has not got at least some kind of a co-educational college.
The testimony in favor of co-education, by all those colleges which
have tried it, is very emphatic. The president of Rutherford College
(N.C.), says: “This school [established in 1853] is the first experiment
in the South, of which we have any information, in which an attempt
has been made to train the two sexes together in the course of a
college education. Its results prove the experiment to be a complete
success.” The president of Bethel College (Tenn.), says: “The mutual
refining influences of co-education, socially, mentally, and morally,
upon the sexes, is unquestionably good.”
The president of Vanderbilt University, which is the most
important university in the South after the University of Virginia,
writes me that, although co-education has not been formally adopted
there, yet women have never been refused admission into classes,
that degrees would always be conferred upon those who had taken
the proper examinations, and that one young woman had actually
completed the course and received the degree of A.M. What more
can the women of the central Southern States desire? It is not
necessary that every male college should be open to them; there may
be parents who think that the conventual life is best suited to the
moral and social development of their sons, and such parents should
have an opportunity for carrying out the plan which commends itself
to them. All that women ask is that they should have freedom of
access to the best men’s colleges. In that way a standard for a
woman’s education will be fixed, and every woman will be able to
reach that standard if she desires it; the second best colleges may
then be allowed to be as exclusive as they please.
There is one more bright spot in the educational outlook for
Southern women: it is announced that in the new Methodist
university, which is about to be founded in Washington, on a large
scale, every department will be open to women on exactly the same
terms as to men.
It lies with Southern women to decide whether they shall accept
the large privileges which are now open to them. It is hard for
mothers who did not go to college themselves, and who have still
lived what seemed to them to be happy lives, to feel that something
different is desirable for their daughters; but may there not be
fathers who, having tasted the pleasures of intellectual activity for
themselves, will be minded to lead their daughters into the same
fields which they have found to be attractive?
 THE SEMI-COLLEGES.
I give in Appendix C, Table II., the list of semi-colleges, as
determined from their catalogues. Of course, it cannot be inferred
from the fact that the course is a good one that it is well carried out:
but if the course is very limited, if the text-books used are poor, if
there is no indication that the school has any library nor any
scientific apparatus, it can be inferred that the school is not of a high
grade; the above list may therefore be taken as a superior limit of the
semi-colleges in the South. On the other hand, it may happen that
the teachers of the classics and of English literature are persons of
culture and of wide learning, and that a greater number of authors
are read than the course laid down demands.
In the Mary Sharp College (Winchester, Tenn.), in 1887–88, four
young ladies completed the following post graduate course in the
first half year[26]: Seneca’s Essays, Œdipus Tyrannus, Dindorf’s
Metres, Colloquia in Latin, etc.; in the second half year two of them
read Lycias’ Orations,—against Eratosthenes, concerning the sacred
olive, and the funeral oration,—the Panegyric of Isoscrates,
Xenophon’s Symposium, Lucian’s Charon, and Plutarch’s Delay of
the Deity; and one of them, Miss Ada Slaughter, read, in addition,
the Ajax of Sophocles, Plato’s Apology and Crito, Iliad (three books),
Lucian’s Dream, Seneca’s Epigrammatica, Seneca’s Letters, Ovid’s
Metamorphoses (nine books), Cicero de Officiis, Pliny’s Letters,
Sallust’s Jugurtha, and Eutropius. This college was founded in 1850,
and for many years “it maintained a course of study, a method of
instruction, and plan of government far in advance of any college in
America for women.”[27] From the beginning it has required both
Latin and Greek for graduation, and a very respectable amount of
both; it thus deserves, more than the Georgia Female College, the
name of the first college exclusively for women in the country. It has
over three hundred graduates, and in 1887–88 it had 182 pupils.
The Nashville College for Young Ladies seems to be one of the
most important of the colleges of this grade in the South. It has
frequent lectures from the professors of Vanderbilt University, and
students in the scientific department attend lectures in the
laboratories and cabinets of that university. A teacher of the school is
present, and examines the class afterward. The professor quizzes in
the daily lecture course, but is not responsible for the examinations.
The president of the school writes me:
“Until I began here in 1880, the thought of arresting the
graduation of a girl was not entertained. If she went through the
curriculum without preliminary tests or without any intermediate or
final examinations, the diploma followed as a matter of implied
contract. Pupils were received to be graduated within a specified
time. This sounds incredible, I know, and yet I have the best proof of
the fact. When I announced that no pupil would be graduated in my
institution without sufficient tests of her scholarship, it was freely
predicted that such an innovation would destroy the patronage of the
school. I am glad to say that the vaticination was false, but I allude to
the facts to throw light upon the status among us.”
 THE OTHER FEMALE COLLEGES.
The schools for women which are of a higher grade than the
ordinary high school, but not so high as the college, the Bureau of
Education classifies under the head of Superior Instruction. It will be
seen from Appendix C, Table III., that the State of Kentucky has
nineteen of these female colleges, and that six of the Southern States
have an average of fourteen each. They are of all possible degrees of
excellence. Such schools as the Hollins Institute and the Norfolk
College for Young Ladies in Virginia, and Caldwell College at
Danville, Ky., have every mark of being thoroughly good schools. The
difficulty with nearly all these schools is, of course, that they are
private and money-making enterprises, and do not care to incur
large expenses for teachers or for the proper appliances for
instruction, nor to make the course of study so rigid as to drive away
pupils. It is remarkable to see how soon the character of the course,
and especially the character of the text-books, is changed as soon as
the majority of the teachers are graduates of Northern colleges. On
the other hand, it is the lack of intelligence and care on the part of
parents that permits the poorest of these schools to continue to exist.
If the worst half of these schools could be starved out of existence,
and if their patronage could be transferred to the better half, the
quality of the instruction which women receive in the South would be
completely changed. It is a duty which parents owe to the public, no
less than to their daughters, to discriminate carefully against the
thoroughly worthless schools.[28]
In one of these so-called colleges no foreign language is taught; in
another, the senior class takes a whole year to complete plane
geometry; in very many of them Steele’s text-books in the sciences
are used. In the Chickasaw Female College, Latin is optional, no
other language and very little mathematics is taught, and the
president says: “An experience of very many years proves to me that
this course is not too far extended.” In many of these small colleges
the subjects of study constitute separate schools, following the plan
of the University of Virginia. In the Marion Female Seminary, “the
schools being distinct, the student may become a candidate for
graduation in one or all of them at once.” There are sometimes
thirteen distinct schools; in the Huntsville Female Seminary there
are ten, all carried out, as far as appears from the catalogue, by a
single instructor, the president.
The rules and regulations in many of these colleges are extremely
minute and harassing; they are largely copied from one catalogue to
another; in several instances the pupils are not allowed to read any
book nor any newspaper without the express permission of the
president; in nearly all, the discipline will be “mild, but, if necessary,
firm.” In one catalogue only, it is said that “there are no rules and but
few regulations; ladylike conduct is the one thing required.”
A uniform dress must be worn in many of these colleges. The
Sunday suit is frequently “of navy blue, made fashionably, but with
no trimmings of either silk or satin, no ruffles, and no beads.” In one
of these schools, a uniform dress was at first required only for
Sundays, but the week day dressing was found to be so extravagant
that it became necessary to restrict the material worn to a black and
white check gingham. In the catalogue of the Suffolk Female
Institute, it is stated that “the uniform dress usually prescribed by
other institutions is not required here”; and, in that of another
school, that “uniformity is not needful or wise.”
The cost of board and tuition in these schools (exclusive of music
and painting and fancy work) is most frequently about two hundred
dollars. Parents who can afford it usually send their daughters North,
or at least as far North as to Virginia or Tennessee, as it is considered
that a few years passed in a colder climate have a good effect in
establishing their health. Only a small number have as yet taken the
college courses that are offered in the North. The following table
gives the results of my inquiries:
 Southern Graduates of Northern Colleges.

Vassar College 42
Wellesley College 16
Smith College 10
Swarthmore College 5
Boston University 5
Bryn Mawr College 2
Cornell University 1
Syracuse University 0
Kansas University 0
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 0

Total 81

The president of Michigan University is able to recall from six to

ten women graduates from Southern States, and the number from
the University of Wisconsin has been “not large.”
 SECONDARY INSTRUCTION.
From the statistics for secondary instruction in the Southern
States, it may be discovered that there are more than twice as many
girls as boys in attendance upon public high schools. There are three
times as many girls as boys throughout the whole country, it will be
remembered, who complete the high school course. I do not find that
a single Southern city provides a high school for boys without
providing one for girls also, and usually it is the same school for both
(though the recitation-rooms may be separate). Where the schools
are distinct, the girls’ school is usually much inferior to the boys’.
This is notably the case in Baltimore, where the boys’ high school (it
is called the City College) fits admirably for the Johns Hopkins
University, and where the two girls’ high schools are of an extremely
low grade. Throughout the entire South there are only forty-one high
schools, while there are seventy-six in Massachusetts alone, but it
must be remembered that any system of public schools has hardly
existed in the South previous to the war.
An important feature in secondary education in the South is the
establishment of the Bryn Mawr Preparatory School in Baltimore. In
1884 five ladies formed themselves into a committee and appointed a
secretary and six teachers (science, classics, mathematics, history,
French, and German), all college graduates, and a drawing teacher.
The school opened with forty pupils, and in the third year it met all
its expenses. A very handsome building, containing a thoroughly
well-equipped gymnasium, is now (1889) being erected by Miss
Mary Garrett (one of the directors) for the future accommodation of
the school. For this building the directors expect to pay a fair rent—if
not on the actual cost, yet on the price of a building that would have
met the needs of the school. They are anxious to prove that a school
of this grade can be made to pay.[29] They intend, out of the earnings
of the school, to pay the college expenses for four years of the two
best students of each year’s graduating class. The distinguishing
mark of the school is that it requires each child who enters to take
the subjects required for entrance to college (the Bryn Mawr College
entrance examinations are given in the sixth and seventh years) and
at the same time a continuous course in drawing, science, and
history, in order that a satisfactory course of study may be offered to
girls who do not intend to go to college. The number of pupils is
limited to 150.
 NORMAL SCHOOLS AND INDUSTRIAL
EDUCATION.
In the great advance which has been made in the South since the
war in the establishment of systems of public schools, the managers
of the Peabody Fund have played a very important part. It has been
said, and without exaggeration, that no two millions of dollars ever
did so much good to the cause of education. Normal schools, in
particular, have been the object of their special care. In accordance
with the express wishes of the founder, the fund has offered aid
proportionate to what a State might do in order to secure the
establishment of such schools; and the initiative steps in every State
included in its administration have been taken under the suggestion
and stimulus of its managers. There are now thirty-two normal
schools in the South; Alabama has seven, Georgia and North
Carolina have none. The Normal College at Nashville is not only a
normal school for Tennessee, but for the whole South as well; the
trustees of the Peabody Fund distribute 114 free scholarships
annually among ten Southern States. They have also established
recently the Winthrop Training School for white girls in South
Carolina, and that State has for the first time made an appropriation
especially for the higher education of girls.[30]
Industrial training on any important scale has existed throughout
the country only since 1862. In that year Congress granted large
bodies of public lands to each of the States for the establishment of
agricultural and mechanical colleges. The law permitted the
introduction of a moderate college curriculum into these institutions.
Gradually the returning Southern States accepted this gift, and all of
them have made some endeavor to utilize it, either by attaching a
department to the existing State university, or, as in Virginia, Texas,
Mississippi, Kentucky, and Alabama, by maintaining a separate
agricultural and mechanical college.
Women ought, of course, to have had a share in these government
grants, and the statistics for the whole country show that of the
thirty-two colleges to which they have been given, no less than
twenty report students of both sexes.[31] But in the Southern States,
with the exception of Arkansas and Kentucky, none but colored
women have received any benefit from these grants. The Arkansas
Industrial University is an admirably administered institution; the
literary course, which forms the ground-work for the industrial
training, is only a year behind a good college course. The first class
was graduated in 1875, and consisted of seven women and one man.
The Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College has at present
twenty-four women in the college course.
The Legislature of Georgia passed a bill last year (1889)
appropriating $200,000 for the establishment of an industrial
school for girls. In Mississippi an admirable industrial school for
girls has been in existence since 1885,—the Industrial Institute and
College, at Columbus. The entire income of this school is derived
from State appropriations; tuition is free to all girls of Mississippi,
and board is also free to 300 girls apportioned among the several
counties of the State. Other pupils are furnished board at cost,
usually about nine dollars a month, including washing. The
industrial subjects taught are phonography, telegraphy, type-writing,
decorative and industrial art, répoussé and art needlework, printing,
dressmaking, designing, engraving, modeling, cooking, laundry-
work, housekeeping (in a separate cottage), and book-keeping. There
are 113 students in the collegiate course and 275 in the business
course. The collegiate course shows a marked advance upon the
usual course of study in girl’s colleges, especially in the elements of a
solid education, in the mathematical and scientific studies. Analytical
geometry, Juvenal, Livy, and Horace, Hamilton’s metaphysics, and
political economy, are among the required studies, and the calculus,
descriptive geometry, quantitative analysis, and Ueberweg’s History
of Philosophy are among the subjects offered in post graduate
courses. The standard of scholarship is high: 75 per cent. must be
obtained in examinations in order to advance from one class to
another. The laboratories are fitted up with the best modern
appliances. The students in turn do the work of the dining-room and
the sleeping apartments. Many of the former pupils are already
earning good salaries in telegraphy, phonography, book-keeping, etc.
It is plain that this industrial school of Mississippi presents a model
which other States, both North and South, would do extremely well
to copy.
 CONCLUSION.
On the whole, the outlook for the education of women in the
Southern States is not discouraging. The difficult first step has been
taken,—there are women college graduates here and there, and it is
no longer necessary to look upon them as monstrosities. In many a
Southern family, the question whether a girl shall go to college or not
has become, at least, a question to be discussed. It rests largely with
existing college graduates to determine whether a sentiment in favor
of the higher education for women shall grow rapidly or slowly, and
whether schools for “superior instruction” shall be or shall not be
improved in quality. It is not necessary that every girl should go to
college, but it is necessary that some should go, for there is
absolutely no other way of keeping up the standard of the lower
schools except by making sure that they give such instruction as will
stand the test of the college entrance examinations. No more
important work could be done for women than to establish a dozen
preparatory schools throughout the South, similar to the Bryn Mawr
school in Baltimore, for the purpose of giving Southern mothers a
standard of comparison, and enabling them to exterminate, by loss
of patronage, those girls’ schools which are thoroughly unfitted for
the performance of their work.
 V.
WOMAN IN LITERATURE.

BY

HELEN GRAY CONE.

“I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
That says my hand a needle better fits.

· · · · ·

Men can do best, and women know it well.

Pre-eminence in each and all is yours,
Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours.”
—Anne Bradstreet, 1640.

“Let us be wise, and not impede the soul. Let her work as she will. Let us have
one creative energy, one incessant revelation. Let it take what form it will, and let
us not bind it by the past to man or woman.”
—Margaret Fuller, 1844.

It is difficult to disengage a single thread from the living web of a

nation’s literature. The interplay of influences is such, that the
product spun from the heart and brain of woman alone must, when
thus disengaged, lose something of its significance. In criticism, a
classification based upon sex is necessarily misleading and inexact.
As far as difference between the literary work of women and that of
men is created by difference of environment and training, it may be
regarded as accidental; while the really essential difference, resulting
from the general law that the work of woman shall somehow, subtly,
express womanhood, not only varies widely in degree with the
individual worker, but is, in certain lines of production, almost
ungraspable by criticism. We cannot rear walls which shall separate
literature into departments, upon a principle elusive as the air. “It is
no more the order of nature that the especially feminine element
should be incarnated pure in any form, than that the masculine
energy should exist unmingled with it in any form.” The experiment
which, Lowell tells us, Nature tried in shaping the genius of
Hawthorne, she repeats and reverses at will.
In practice, the evil effects which have followed the separate
consideration of woman’s work in literature are sufficiently plain.
The debasement of the coin of criticism is a fatal measure. The
dearest foe of the woman artist in the past has been the suave and
chivalrous critic, who, judging all “female writers” by a special
standard, has easily bestowed the unearned wreath.
The present paper is grounded, it will be seen, upon no preference
for the Shaker-meeting arrangement which prevailed so long in our
American Temple of the Muses. It has seemed desirable, in a
historical review of the work of women in this country, to follow the
course of their effort in the field of literature; to note the occasional
impediments of the stream, its sudden accessions of force, its general
tendency, and its gradual widening.
The colonial period has of course little to give us. The professional
literary woman was then unknown. The verses of Mrs. Anne
Bradstreet, called in flattery “the tenth Muse,” were “the fruit but of
some few hours, curtailed from her sleep and other refreshments.”
The negro girl, Phillis Wheatley, whose poetical efforts had been
published under aristocratic patronage in England, when robbed of
her mistress by death “resorted to marriage”—not to literature—“as
the only alternative native of destitution.” Mrs. Mercy Warren was
never obliged to seek support from that sharp-pointed pen which
copied so cleverly the satiric style of Pope, and which has left
voluminous records of the Revolution. She too wrote her tragedies
“for amusement, in the solitary hours when her friends were
abroad.”
Miss Hannah Adams, born in Massachusetts in 1755, may be
accepted as the first American woman who made literature her
profession. Her appearance as a pioneer in this country corresponds
closely in time with that of Mary Wollstonecraft in England. She
wrote, at seventy-seven, the story of her life. Her account sets forth
clearly the difficulties which, in her youth, had to be dealt with by a
woman seriously undertaking authorship. Ill-health, which forbade
her attending school, was an individual disadvantage; but she
remarks incidentally on the defectiveness of the country school,
where girls learned only to write and cipher, and were, in summer,
“instructed by females in reading, sewing, and other kinds of work....
I remember that my first idea of the happiness of heaven was of a
place where we should find our thirst for knowledge fully gratified.”
How pathetically the old woman recalls the longing of the eager girl!
All her life she labored against odds; learning, however, the
rudiments of Latin, Greek, geography, and logic, “with indescribable
pleasure and avidity,” from some gentlemen boarding at her father’s
house. Becoming interested in religious controversy, she formed the
plan of compiling a “View of Religions”; not at first hoping to derive
what she calls “emolument” from the work. To win bread she relied
at this time upon spinning, sewing, or knitting, and, during the
Revolutionary War, on the weaving of bobbin lace; afterward falling
back on her scant classical resources to teach young gentlemen Latin
and Greek. Meanwhile the compilation went on. “Reading much
religious controversy,” observes Miss Adams, “must be extremely
trying to a female, whose mind, instead of being strengthened by
those studies which exercise the judgment, and give stability to the
character, is debilitated by reading romances and novels.” This sense
of disadvantage, of the meekly accepted burden of sex, pervades the
autobiography; it seems the story of a patient cripple. When the long
task was done, her inexperience made her the dupe of a dishonest
printer, and although the book sold well, her only compensation was
fifty copies, for which she was obliged herself to find purchasers,
having previously procured four hundred subscribers. Fortunately
she had the copyright; and before the publication of a second edition,
she chanced to make the acquaintance of a clerical good Samaritan,
who transacted the business for her. The “emolument” derived from
this second edition at last enabled her to pay her debts, and to put
out a small sum upon interest. Her “History of New England,” in the
preparation of which her eyesight was nearly sacrificed, met with a
good sale; but an abridgment of it brought her nothing, on account of
the failure of the printer. She sold the copyright of her “Evidences of
Christianity” for one hundred dollars in books.
 This, then, is our starting-point: evident character and ability, at a
disadvantage both in production and in the disposal of the product;
imperfect educational equipment; and a hopeless consciousness of
inferiority, almost amounting to an inability to stand upright
mentally.
Susanna Rowson, who wrote the popular “Charlotte Temple,” may
be classed as an American novelist, although not born in this
country. She appears also as a writer of patriotic songs, an actress, a
teacher, and the compiler of a dictionary and other school-books.
“The Coquette, or the History of Eliza Wharton,” by Hannah Webster
Foster, was another prime favorite among the formal novels of the
day.
Kind Miss Hannah Adams, in her old age, chanced to praise a
certain metrical effort,—unpromisingly labeled “Jephthah’s Rash
Vow,”—put forth by a girl of sixteen, Miss Caroline Howard. Here
occurs an indicative touch. “When I learned,” says this commended
Miss Caroline, “that my verses had been surreptitiously printed in a
newspaper, I wept bitterly, and was as alarmed as if I had been
detected in man’s apparel.” Such was the feeling with which the
singing-robes were donned by a maiden in 1810—a state of affairs
soon to be replaced by a general fashion of feminine singing-robes, of
rather cheap material. For during the second quarter of the present
century conditions somewhat improved, and production greatly
increased. “There was a wide manifestation of that which bears to
pure ideality an inferior relationship,” writes Mr. Stedman of the
general body of our literature at this period. In 1848 Dr. Griswold
reports that “women among us are taking a leading part”; that “the
proportion of female writers at this moment in America, far exceeds
that which the present or any other age in England exhibits.” Awful
moment in America! one is led to exclaim by a survey of the poetic
field. Alas, the verse of those “Tokens,” and “Keepsakes,” and
“Forget-me-nots,” and “Magnolias,” and all the rest of the annuals,
all glorious without in their red or white Turkey morocco and
gilding! Alas, the flocks of quasi swan-singers! They have sailed away
down the river of Time, chanting with a monotonous mournfulness.
We need not speak of them at length. One of them early wrote about
the Genius of Oblivion; most of them wrote for it. It was not their
fault that their toil increased the sum of the “Literature suited to
Desolate Islands.” The time was out of joint. Sentimentalism infected
both continents. It was natural enough that the infection should seize
most strongly upon those who were weakened by an intellectual best-
parlor atmosphere, with small chance of free out-of-door currents.
They had their reward. Their crude constituencies were proud of
them; and not all wrought without “emolument,” though it need
hardly be said that verse-making was not and is not, as a rule, a
remunerative occupation. Some names survive; held in the memory
of the public by a few small, sweet songs on simple themes, probably
undervalued by their authors, but floating now like flowers above the
tide that has swallowed so many pretentious, sand-based structures.
Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, the most prolific poetess of the period,
was hailed as “the American Mrs. Hemans.” A gentle and pious
womanhood shone through her verse; but her books are undisturbed
and dusty in the libraries now, and likely to remain so. Maria Gowen
Brooks,—“Maria del Occidente,”—was, on the other hand, not
popular at home, but put forth a far stronger claim than Mrs.
Sigourney, and won indeed somewhat disproportionate praises
abroad. “Southey says ‘Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven,’ is by some
Yankee woman,” writes Charles Lamb; “as if there had ever been a
woman capable of anything so great!” One is glad that we need not
now consider as the acme of woman’s poetic achievement this
metrical narrative of the loves of the angels; nevertheless, it is on the
whole a remarkably sustained work, with a gorgeousness of coloring
which might perhaps be traced to its author’s Celtic strain.
As Mrs. Samuel Gilman, Caroline Howard, of whom we have
already spoken, carried the New England spirit into a Southern
home, and there wrote not only verses, but sketches and tales, much
in the manner of her sisters, who never left the Puritan nest; though
dealing at times with material strange to them, as in her
“Recollections of a Southern Matron.” With the women of New
England lies our chief concern, until a date comparatively recent. A
strong, thinking, working race,—all know the type; granite rock, out
of its crevices the unexpected harebells trembling here and there. As
writers they have a general resemblance; in one case a little more
mica and glitter, in another more harebells than usual. Mrs.
Sigourney, for instance, presents an azure predominance of the
flowery, on a basis of the practical. Think of her fifty-seven volumes
—copious verse, religious and sentimental; sketches of travel;
didactic “Letters” to mothers, to young ladies; the charmingly
garrulous “Letters of Life,” published after her death. Quantity,
dilution, diffusiveness, the dispersion of energy in a variety of aims,
—these were the order of the day. Lydia Maria Child wrote more than
thirty-five books and pamphlets, beginning with the apotheosis of
the aboriginal American in romance, ending in the good fight with
slavery, and taking in by the way domestic economy, the progress of
religious ideas, and the Athens of Pericles, somewhat romanticized.
Firm granite here, not without ferns of tenderest grace. It is very
curious and impressive, the self-reliant dignity with which these
noble matrons circumambulate the whole field of literature, with
errant feet, but with a character central and composed. They are
“something better than their verse,” and also than their prose. Why
was it that the dispersive tendency of the time showed itself
especially in the literary effort of women? Perhaps the scattering,
haphazard kind of education then commonly bestowed upon girls
helped to bring about such a condition of things. Efficient work, in
literature as in other professions, is dependent, in a degree, upon
preparation; not indeed upon the actual amount of knowledge
possessed, but upon the training of the mind to sure action, and the
vitality of the spark of intellectual life communicated in early days.
To the desultory and aimless education of girls at this period, and
their continual servitude to the sampler, all will testify. “My
education,” says Mrs. Gilman, “was exceedingly irregular, a
perpetual passing from school to school.... I drew a very little and
worked ‘The Babes in the Wood’ on white satin, with floss silk.” By
and by, however, she “was initiated into Latin,” studied Watts’s Logic
by herself, and joined a private class in French. Lydia Huntley (Mrs.
Sigourney), fared somewhat better; pursuing mathematics, though
she admits that too little time was accorded to the subject; and being
instructed in “the belles-lettres studies” by competent teachers. Her
day-school education ceased at thirteen; she afterward worked alone
over history and mental philosophy, had tutors in Latin and French,
and even dipped into Hebrew, under clerical guidance. This has a
deceptively advanced sound; we are to learn presently that she was
sent away to boarding-school, where she applied herself to
—“embroidery of historical scenes, filigree, and other finger-works.”
(May we not find a connection between this kind of training, and the
production of dramatic characters as lifelike as those figures in floss
silk? Was it not a natural result, that corresponding “embroidery of
historical scenes” performed by the feminine pen?) Lydia Maria
Francis (Mrs. Child) “apart from her brother’s companionship, had,
as usual, a very unequal share of educational opportunities;
attending only the public schools”—the public schools of the century
in its teens—“with one year at a private seminary.” She writes to the
Rev. Convers Francis in 1838, “If I possessed your knowledge, it
seems to me as if I could move the whole world. I am often amused
and surprised to think how many things I have attempted to do with
my scanty stock of learning.” Catherine Sedgwick, “reared in an
atmosphere of high intelligence,” still confesses, “I have all my life
felt the want of more systematic training.”
Another cause of the scattering, unmethodical supply may have
been the vagueness of the demand. America was not quite sure what
it was proper to expect of “the female writer”; and perhaps that lady
herself had a lingering feudal idea that she could hold literary
territory only on condition of stout pen-service in the cause of the
domestic virtues and pudding. “In those days,” says Thomas
Wentworth Higginson, “it seemed to be held necessary for American
women to work their passage into literature by first compiling a
cookery-book.” Thus we have Mrs. Child’s “Frugal Housewife”; and
we find clever Eliza Leslie of Philadelphia, putting forth “Seventy-five
Receipts,” before she ventures upon her humorous and satirical
“Pencil Sketches.” The culinary tradition was carried on, somewhat
later, by Catherine Beecher, with her “Domestic Receipt Book”; and
we have indeed most modern instances, in the excellent “Common
Sense Series” of the novelist “Marion Harland,” and in Mrs.
Whitney’s “Just How.” Perhaps, however, it is not fancy that these
wear the kitchen apron with a difference.
In addition to lack of training, and to the vague nature of the
public demand, a third cause operated against symmetrical artistic
development among the women of those electric days preceding the
Civil War. That struggle between the art-instinct and the desire for
reform, which is not likely to cease entirely until the coming of the
Golden Year, was then at its height. Both men and women were
drawn into the maelstrom of the anti-slavery conflict; yet to a few
men the artist’s single aim seemed still possible: to Longfellow, to
Hawthorne. Similar examples are lacking among contemporary
women. Essential womanhood, “das Ewigweibliche,” seems at this
point unusually clear in the work of women; the passion for conduct,
the enthusiasm for abstract justice, not less than the potential
motherhood that yearns over all suffering.
The strong Hebraic element in the spiritual life of New England
women, in particular, tended to withdraw them from the service of
pure art at this period. “My natural inclinations,” wrote Lydia Maria
Child, “drew me much more strongly toward literature and the arts
than toward reform, and the weight of conscience was needed to turn
the scale.”
Mrs. Child and Miss Sedgwick, chosen favorites of the public,
stand forth as typical figures. Both have the art-instinct, both the
desire for reform; in Mrs. Child the latter decidedly triumphs, in
spite of her romances; in Miss Sedgwick, the former, though less
decidedly, in spite of her incidental preachments. She wrote “without
any purpose or hope to slay giants,” aiming merely “to supply
mediocre readers with small moral hints on various subjects that
come up in daily life.” It is interesting to note just what public favor
meant, materially, to the most popular women writers of those days.
Miss Sedgwick, at a time when she had reached high-water mark,
wrote in reply to one who expected her to acquire a fortune, that she
found it impossible to make much out of novel-writing while cheap
editions of English novels filled the market. “I may go on,” she says,
“earning a few hundred dollars a year, and precious few too.” One
could not even earn the “precious few” without observing certain
laws of silence. The “Appeal in Behalf of that class of Americans
called Africans” seriously lessened the income of Mrs. Child. That
dubious America of 1833 was decided on one point: this was not
what she expected of “the female writer.” She was willing to be
instructed by a woman—about the polishing of furniture and the
education of daughters.
And now there arises before us another figure, of striking
singularity and power. Margaret Fuller never appeared as a
candidate for popular favor. On the polishing of furniture she was
absolutely silent; nor, though she professed “high respect for those
who ‘cook something good,’ and create and preserve fair order in
houses,” did she ever fulfill the understood duty of woman by
publishing a cookery-book. On the education of daughters she had,
however, a vital word to say; demanding for them “a far wider and
more generous culture.” Her own education had been of an
exceptional character; she was fortunate in its depth and solidity,
though unfortunate in the forcing process that had made her a hard
student at six years old. Her equipment was superior to that of any
American woman who had previously entered the field of literature;
and hers was a powerful genius, but, by the irony of fate, a genius not
prompt to clothe itself in the written word. As to the inspiration of
her speech, all seem to agree; but one who knew her well has spoken
of the “singular embarrassment and hesitation induced by the
attempt to commit her thoughts to paper.” The reader of the
Sibylline leaves she scattered about her in her strange career receives
the constant impression of hampered power, of force that has never
found its proper outlet. In “Woman in the Nineteenth Century,”
there is certainly something of that “shoreless Asiatic dreaminess”
complained of by Carlyle; but there are also to be found rich words,
fit, like those of Emerson, for “gold nails in temples to hang trophies
on.” The critical Scotchman himself subsequently owned that “some
of her Papers are the undeniable utterances of a true heroic mind;
altogether unique, so far as I know, among the Writing Women of
this generation; rare enough, too, God knows, among the Writing
Men.” She accomplished comparatively little that can be shown or
reckoned. Her mission was “to free, arouse, dilate.” Those who
immediately responded were few; and as the circle of her influence
has widened through their lives, the source of the original impulse
has been unnamed and forgotten. But if we are disposed to rank a
fragmentary greatness above a narrow perfection, to value loftiness
of aim more than the complete attainment of an inferior object, we
must set Margaret Fuller, despite all errors of judgment, all faults of
style, very high among the “Writing Women” of America. It is time
that, ceasing to discuss her personal traits, we dwelt only upon the
permanent and essential, in her whose mind was fixed upon the
permanent, the essential. Her place in our literature is her own; it
has not been filled, nor does it seem likely to be. The particular kind
of force which she exhibited—in so far as it was not individual—
stands a chance in our own day of being drawn into the educational
field, now that the “wider and more generous culture” which she
claimed has been accorded to women.
 We may trace from the early publications of Lydia Maria Francis
and Catherine Sedgwick the special line along which women have
worked most successfully. It is in fiction that they have wrought with
the greatest vigor and freedom; and in that important class of fiction
which reflects faithfully the national life, broadly or in sectional
phases. In 1821 Miss Francis, a girl of nineteen, wrote “Hobomok,” a
rather crude novel of colonial Massachusetts, with an Indian hero.
Those were the times of the pseudo-American school, the heyday of
what Mr. Stedman has called the “supposititious Indian.” To the
sanguine, “Hobomok” seemed to foreshadow a feminine Cooper; and
its author put forth in the following year “The Rebels,” a novel of
Boston before the Revolution. A more effective worker on this line,
however, was Miss Sedgwick; whose “New England Tale”—a simple
little story, originally intended as a tract—was published in 1822, and
at once drew attention, in spite of a certain thinness, by its
recognizable home flavor. The plain presentation of New England life
in “Redwood,” her succeeding book, interests and convinces the
reader of to-day. Some worthless elements of plot, now out of date,
are introduced; but age cannot wither nor custom stale the fresh
reality of the most memorable figure,—that manly soul Miss
Deborah, a character as distinct as Scott himself could have made
her. “Hope Leslie,” “Clarence,” and “The Linwoods” followed; then
the briefer tales supplying “small moral hints,” such as the “Poor
Rich Man and Rich Poor Man.” All are genuine, wholesome,
deserving of the hearty welcome they received. “Wise, clear, and
kindly,”—one must echo the verdict of Margaret Fuller on our gentle
pioneer in native fiction; we may look back with pride on her “speech
moderate and sane, but never palsied by fear or skeptical caution”;
on herself, “a fine example of the independent and beneficent
existence that intellect and character can give to woman.” The least
studied among her pathetic scenes are admirable; and she displays
some healthy humor, though not as much as her charming letters
indicate that she possessed. A recent writer has ranked her work in
one respect above that of Cooper, considering it more calculated to
effect “the emancipation of the American mind from foreign types.”
Miss Sedgwick, past threescore, was still in the literary harness,
when the woman who was destined to bring the novel of New
England to a fuller development reached fame at a bound with
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” At last the artist’s instinct and the purpose of