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• 1 2018-10-05T15:56:33+00:00 Trustees in Petticoats 2 plain 2018-10-05T15:57:21+00:00

  The Saturday April 6, 1895 issue of the Washington Times featured an article "Trustees in Petticoats" reporting that "for the first time since the government was founded, the gentler sex is to be represented on the board of school trustees" for the District of Columbia. The decision by the commissioners to appoint two women, Mary Church Terrell and Louise Reed Stowell, made newsnationally as it was the first time a "colored" woman was appointed on any school board in the United States.

  From her first appearance on the board it was clear that the future of the "colored" race mattered very much to Terrell who saw education as the best vehicle for achieving equity in American society. Her vision of education for the race was not limited to intellectual pursuits.  It encompassed an holistic endeavor focused on the mental, moral, and physical uplifting of the individual.  On account of this Terrell deemed it necessary to start this education as early as possible and was a staunch advocate of establishing kindergartens.  In her first interview as a member of the D. C. School Board she stated that

  The importance of starting little ones on the right track as early as possible is too self-evident and universally acknowledged to be discussed. The more unfavorable the environments of children the more necessary it is that steps be taken to counteract the baleful influence upon the innocent victims. Crowded into alleys, many of them the haunts of vice, few, if any, of them in a proper sanitary condition, and most of them destructive to mental and moral growth, as well as to healthful physical  development, thousands of our children have a wretched inheritance indeed....How much it would mean to these children if every day they came in contact with intelligence and respectability! The good accomplished by establishing kindergartens in this city cannot be estimated.

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  • Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 09 April 1895. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1895-04-09/ed-1/seq-12/>

  Kindergarten quickly became a buzz word in D. C. and the Washington Times would take up the banner, issuing a special souvenir edition "devoted to the interests of the public schools of the District of Columbia."  In a June 1895 letter to the Times Mary Church Terrell commended the  paper on this  project and hoped the souvenir edition would "impress upon the next Congress, the necessity of making an appropriation for the establishment of free kindergartens in the District."  Terrell reiterated and expounded on her earlier argument for the establishment of kindergartens on June 19, 1895.

  The need of free kindergartens in the District is so urgent and so apparent that it seems almost like a reflection upon the intelligence of the citizens to present arguments in its favor. In a republic like ours, it is of the highest importance that its future citizens and legislators should receive the best training it is in the power of the government to give. It is a duty we owe the State and a duty we owe the children to start them on the right track as early as possible.

  Before a child is six years of age impressions are made upon his mind which it is difficult in late years to efface. Bad habits of body and mind are formed, which only the greatest patience and perseverance on the part of both teacher and pupil can correct. If children whose home influences leave nothing to be desired, cannot be trained too early in the way they should go, how imperative is it that the little ones whose lines are cast in unpleasant and corrupt places should receive proper instruction before they become irrevocably tainted and vitiated by their surroundings.

   

  The child who comes in constant contact with ignorance and vice at the most impressionable period of its existence is cruelly handicapped at the very beginning of its journey through life. How much it would mean to the future welfare of such a one if only for a few hours a day it might come under the influence of intelligence, decency and cleanliness, by means of the kindergarten.

   

  • The Washington times. (Washington, D.C.), 19 June 1895. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062244/1895-06-19/ed-1/seq-16/>

  Mary Church Terrell was so convinced that the kindergarten would be a panacea for addressing the ills inherent in the "colored" population that she made and sold extra copies of her address (CWWW 153) The Progress of Colored Women to the attendees at the Fiftieth Annual Woman's Suffrage Convention held in Washington, D. C. in 1898. The proceeds from the sales were to provide seed money to "establish kindergartens, wherever it was possible to do so."