Address to the First Graduating Class of Rutgers Female College

Pierce, Henry M. (Henry Miller), 1831-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 1.8

Word count: 30K words
Chapters: 3

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Address to the First Graduating Class of Rutgers Female College by Henry M. PierceAuthor: Pierce, Henry M. (Henry Miller), 1831-1902,Language: English, Class: LC: Education: Special aspects of education, Release Date: Dec 30, 2010

Editor's review

This is Henry M. Pierce's address delivered at the first commencement of Rutgers Female College. It is brief, yet it distills the values asserted in the early stage of American women's higher education in the nineteenth century. Facing the first graduating class, the speaker discusses the meaning of education, women's responsibilities, and the continuation of learning, in a solemn tone with an exhortatory flavor. Its value lies not in literary quality but in its value as a historical source: readers can see how society at the time viewed women's colleges, how it defended women's education, and the typical rhetoric of the commencement address as a genre. Read today, some of its ideas seem outdated, but precisely for that reason it serves as a mirror for observing changes in educational history and gender concepts. It is suitable as supplementary material for courses in educational history and women's history, or for readers interested in the genre of public address who wish to do a close reading of a short text.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars and students studying the history of American women's higher education and gender history
English-language readers interested in nineteenth-century public address and rhetoric
Teachers collecting commencement address texts for course materials
English-language readers interested in primary documents of educational history

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking contemporary educational views or practical advice
General readers who struggle with English reading and need Chinese translation assistance
Readers expecting long-form argument or systematic theoretical works

Reading tips

First learn about Rutgers Female College and the background of nineteenth-century American women's education, then read the text.
Treat the address as a historical source, noting its statements about women's roles and the purposes of education.
Compare it with commencement addresses from men's colleges of the same period to observe differences in rhetoric and themes.
The text is short; read it aloud once to appreciate the tension between oral and written registers in the genre of public address.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

How long is this address, and how long does it take to read?

As a single graduation ceremony address, it is limited in length and can usually be read through in under half an hour. If you intend to analyze it as historical material, it is advisable to set aside more time for annotation and background verification, focusing on how the speaker defines the purpose and responsibilities of women's education.

Are the views in the book still applicable today?

The address reflects nineteenth-century social expectations, and its statements about women's roles and educational goals carry clear limitations of their time; they should not be taken directly as contemporary views. Its reading value lies in historical contrast: through it, one can see the justifications for women's higher education at its inception and how these ideas were later revised.

Can I understand it without a background in educational history?

The text itself is not difficult; the English is fluent and the main points are clear. However, without an understanding of the rise of American women's colleges in the nineteenth century, one may mistake the conventional phrases in the address for personal views. It is recommended to spend a little time looking up basic information about Rutgers Female College before reading the main text for a more accurate understanding.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Pierce, Henry M. (Henry Miller), 1831-1902 Author · 1831–1902

Henry M. Pierce (1831–1902), whose full name was Henry Miller Pierce, was an American author about whose life very little has been preserved. The only confirmed information available is his dates of birth and death and a single surviving work; public records are limited, and his education, profession, and social activities remain difficult to trace. The representative work attributed to him is Address to the First Graduating Class of Rutgers Female College. Judging from its title and genre, it is a ceremonial address delivered to the first graduating class of a women's college, belonging to the nineteenth-century rise of higher education for women in the United States. Such addresses were typically solemn and earnest, combining congratulation, exhortation, and reflection on the meaning of women's education, and often mirrored contemporary expectations and controversies surrounding it. Pierce used the occasion to speak to new graduates entering public life about learning and responsibility, in a style that was likely elegant and gently hortatory. As only one work survives, a fuller picture of him as an orator and author awaits further historical evidence.