Lucy Stone's Argumentative Essay: Educating Young America

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Educating Young America
The victory won for America’s independence marked the birth of a nation, and subsequently the birth of an educational system. When America was formed, we didn’t have a way to educate our citizens. This was a huge problem since without a properly educated population democracy falls apart, so America had to act fast. The way that America handled education can be divided into the following four topics which are, where they learned, what they learned, the decline of village schools, and the advent of educational opportunity for women. Today we directly benefit from the reformer’s movements.

As a young boy in early America, your educational choices were very limited and based upon your family’s economic status. You would …show more content…

But for women, things were much more complicated. Women also could not vote, hold office, or own their own money, their husband could treat them any way they wanted to. It was clear that women didn’t have the same rights as men at this time. Women like Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Blackwell refused to be treated this way and decided to speak up for their rights. When Lucy Stone graduated from Oberlin College in 1847, the facility requested her to write a speech. Stone however, wasn’t allowed to present it because they had a rule against women speaking in public so a man would have to give the speech for her. Others would join Stone in propelling the cause of equal education for women. Stone’s sister-in-law Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first woman to receive a medical degree although graduated top of her class, was unable to find a hospital or doctor to work with her. These women and others like them decided that for things to get any better, they would have to act together. These people were known women reformers. One women reformer Emma Willard in 1814 opened up a boarding school in Vermont where girls could learn math, science and/or history. Educational equality, by broadening the educated base served to enrich and nurture a prospering

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