Intellectual Education, and its Influence on the Character and Happiness of Women.
London: John W. Parker and Son, 1858. First edition, scarce in commerce. Minor cracking at hinges, but binding remains very tight. Spine sunned. Otherwise, a clean and attractive copy, internally bright and fresh. Very good. Publisher’s purple cloth stamped in blind, gilt-lettered spine, brown coated endpapers. Octavo. vii, 424, [8, ads] pp. Item #17396
Emily Shirreff (1814 - 1897) was a suffragist, abolitionist, and pioneering educator who played a crucial role in bringing the kindergarten to the English-speaking world. She helped establish the Frobel Society, lecturing and writing extensively on the kindergarten system, and served as its president from 1876 to her death. Sherriff’s other works included Letters from Spain and Barbary (1835/36) and a novel, Passion and Principle (1841), both written with her sister. The two also collaborated on Thoughts on Self-Culture, Addressed to Women (1850), in which they argued that defective education and inactive lives were the main reasons for women’s lack of power and that marriage is not essential to women’s “happiness…and self-respect” (Thoughts on Self-Culture, p. 14).
Shirreff was also one of the most important advocates for women’s education of her day. In 1871, she and her sister Maria Grey (1816 – 1906) founded the Women’s Education Union. She also served for one year as the second principal of Emily Davies’ Women’s College, which is now Girton College at Cambridge. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, p. 978.
Price: $2,500.00