American women had to be started by the women themselves. This is
possibly the first time in human history that a great group of people
feeling itself irresistibly moving toward a social, industrial and
political readjustment, little less than revolutionary in its nature,
has gone deliberately to work to prepare for the change through
education. The working classes of the world are doing the same thing
now; but women showed them the way. In some vague degree, American
women recognized the truth which Dr. Gore recently brought before a mass
of working men in England. "All this passion for justice will accomplish
nothing," he declared, "unless you get knowledge. You may become strong
and clamorous, you may win a victory, you may affect a revolution, but
you will be trodden down again under the feet of knowledge if you leave
knowledge in the hands of privilege, because knowledge will always win
over ignorance."[21]

[21] _The Highway_, London, Nov., 1911.

American women were fortunate, too, in having for their leaders such
women as Emma Willard, Mary Lyon and Catherine Beecher. Emma Willard was
a woman of the world; she had traveled abroad and she brought to her
work a cultivated nature, wide experience of life and natural
leadership. Her personality went far toward lifting the movement to a
plane of respect. After trying a little academy in Vermont, she appealed
to the State of New York in 1814 for help. In this appeal, she wisely
adopted the prevailing view of the relation of the state to education.
The state must have good citizens, she repeats, and then goes on, "The
character of children will be formed by their mothers; and it is through
the mothers that the government can control the character of its future
citizens." The State of New York granted her articles of incorporation
for her academy at Waterford, N.Y., but refused her the modest sum of