A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Beecher, Esther Catherine
BEECHER, ESTHER CATHERINE,
Daughter of the Rev. Lyman Beecher, D. D., was born September 6th., 1800, at East Hampton, Long Island, where she resided till she was about ten years of age. Being the eldest of thirteen children, (ten are now living, all of whom have displayed good talents and some marked genius,) her education was, by her wise parents, considered of essential importance. They knew, that if the eldest child was trained to go in the right way, the others would be almost sure to follow. On the removal of the family to Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1810, the little Catharine was placed at the best school for young ladies there to be found—that of Miss Sally Pierce; and the pupil was soon to excel the teacher. In a letter to a friend, Miss Beecher thus sketches herself at the age when, her education "finished," as the term is, she was preparing to take her part in the usual routine of woman's life; she says:—
"The prominent traits of my natural character, as developed in childhood and youth, were great activity of body and mind, great cheerfulness of spirits, a strong love of the ludicrous, and my imagination teeming with poetry and romance. I had no taste for study or anything that demanded close attention. All my acquisitions were in the line of my tastes, so that at twenty, no habits of mental discipline had being formed."
It was about this time an event occurred that for ever ended all Miss Beecher's youthful dreams of poetry and romance, and changed the whole course of thought and feeling as regarded her destiny in this life. But the Providence that withdrew her heart from the world of woman's hopes, has proved a great blessing to her sex and her country. In 1822 she opened a Female Seminary at Hartford, Connecticut, which received pupils from every State in the Union, and soon numbered from 100 to 160 of these treasures of home, committed to her care and guidance. In discharging the important duties thus devolved on her, she not only learned to understand her own deficiencies of education, but also those of all the systems hitherto adopted for female pupils; and a wish to remedy the want of suitable text-books for her school, called forth her first printed work, an "Arithmetic;" her second work was on the more difficult points of Theology; and her third, an octavo, on "Mental and Moral Philosophy." This, like the others, was prepared for her own pupils, and though it has been printed and introduced in one of our Colleges for young men as a text-book, has never yet been published. These works are important as shewing the energy of mind, and entire devotion to the studies she undertakes, which characterize Miss Beecher. In truth her school duties were then so arduous that her health gave way, and for a season, she was compelled to retire from her work.
In 1832, her father with his family removed to Cincinnati, Ohio. She accompanied them, and there for two years superintended an Institution for Female Education, opened in that city. Since then Miss Beecher has been engaged in maturing and carrying into effect a great plan for the education of all the children In America. For this end she has written and journeyed, pleaded and laboured, and for the last ten years made it the chief object of her thoughts and efforts.
The example of Miss Beecher is of Angular interest In manifesting the power of female talent directed, as hers has ever been, to objects clearly within the allowed orbit of woman's mission. She has never overstepped nature; she gives authority and reverence to the station of men; she hastens to place in their hands the public and governing offices of this mighty undertaking, which is destined to become of more importance to America's interest than any projected since it became a nation. Next to having free institutions, stands Christian education, which makes the whole people capable of sustaining and enjoying them. It is only by preparing woman as the educator, and giving her the office, that this end can be attained.
The printed writings of Miss Beecher have been connected with her governing idea of promoting the best Interests of her own sex, and can scarcely be considered as the true index of what her genius, if devoted to literary pursuits, might have produced. Her chief intellectual efforts seem to have been in a direction exactly contrary to her natural tastes; hence the romantic girl, who, till the age of twenty, was a poet only, has since aimed at writing whatever she felt was most required for her object, and, of course, has chosen that style of plain prose which would be best understood by the greatest number of readers. Besides the three works named, Miss Beecher has prepared an excellent book on "Domestic Economy, for the use of Young Ladies at Home and at School," which has a wide popularity.