Student Notebooks.
(WOMEN'S EDUCATION). (PSYCHOLOGY). Early American Woman's College Education: Personal Course Notebooks, Including Psychology.
Martha Mason's Student Note Books, Featuring Notes from the New Discipline of Psychology. Smith College. Northampton, Massachusetts. 1892-1896, most 1894. Pencil & ink. 23 notebooks, 1779 pp. Some loose pages, overall very good.
A remarkable assemblage of a woman's personal course notebooks, including Psychology, which was taught to women on a very limited basis beginning as early as 1871, but was not taught in women's teachers colleges until 1889.
1. Medieval History, 1892. 79 pp.
2. Latin Notes . 61 pp.
3. English Literature III, 1892. 82 pp.
4. Bible Notes I. 75 pp.
5. English Literature, 1892. 164 pp.
6. Roman History. 140 pp.
7. English Literature I. 72 pp.
8. Quality of Work Notes. 13 pp.
9. Greek,. 29 pp.
10. Antony & Cleopatra, 1896. 45 pp.
11. Hegel's Philosophy. 22 pp.
12. German. 67 pp.
13. English Literature. 87 pp.
14. French, 44 pp.
15. Philosophy 19. 28 pp.
16. English Literature II. 95 pp.
17. Montesquieu. 140 pp.
18. English Literature; Prose, Poetry. 117 pp.
19. Chemistry. 70 pp.
20. Bible Lecture. 61 pp.
21. Aesthetics. 86 pp.
22. Hamlet, 1896. 112 pp.
23. Psychology. 1894. 90 pp.
Rare handwritten Smith College student notebooks of Marsha Mason, highlighted by notes from an early course in Psychology. Martha Mason was one of the very first residents of 4 Lawrence House (erected in 1892) at Smith College and was an alumna of 1894. Also in 1892, G. Stanley Hall invited psychologists and philosophers to a meeting at Clark with the purpose of founding the new American Psyche logical Association--further legitimizing psychology as a part of the academic curriculum.
Martha Mason's psychology notebook includes discussions of theories of emotions and tri and bi partite divisions of feelings, as well as references to Weber and Wundt, Lotze, Ladd (George Trumbull Ladd of Yale whose textbook on psychology was published in 1887), and Darwin's principals of expression. The theory of natural selection was applied to the study of human communication, by Charles Darwin in his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin researched the expression of emotions in an effort to support his theory of evolution.
Scottish philosopher James Mc Cosh's theories on emotions are also noted as well as treatments of will and the will of the child, among other topics.
Previous to about 1892, psychology was not differentiated in schools from philosophy, but it began to evolve into an experimental science. On November 20, 1875, Wundt delivered his first lecture at the University of Leipzig, where he was later (1879) to establish the first working laboratory of experimental psychology. The title of the lecture was "The influence of philosophy on the experimental sciences."
1875 was also the year in which William James gathered a set of experimental apparatus at Harvard University for purposes of instructional demonstrations. Freud's theories are not mentioned in Mason's notebook since he had only set up his practice in 1886 and was not well known until his publication on The Interpretation of Dreams in November of 1899.
Mason's notebooks show the advanced education required of an elite college graduate of the ear and her notes show her mastery of Latin, Greek, and German with comments in those languages. A literature major, her profession as a teacher reflected her scholarly interests.
The importance of Smith College as one of a handful of early institutions to educate women is shown by a brief overview of the history of women's college level education. The first to admit women was Oberlin College, chartered in 1833. Oberlin was founded by a group of abolitionists and from its beginning admitted both African Americans and women. Although the college admitted women, their courses were restricted and women were not allowed to participate in certain courses that were intended just for men.
The first of the "seven sisters", Mount Holyoke, was founded in 1837 by Mary Lyon. Students were required to take seven courses in math and science, which was unheard of at the time. Lyon's students also went on learning field trips and attended lectures of famous scientists. She personally taught chemistry and inspired her students to become researchers and science teachers. Another unusual activity was exercise: Lyon strongly believed in exercise and required her students to walk and participate in calisthenics on a daily basis.
Vassar College opened in 1861 (but according to its website "the first young women" did not arrive until 1865). It was the first college to maintain academic quality and a curriculum which was comparable to that of men's colleges. Most of the college's administrators were male but the majority of the professors were female. Vassar's students were from America's wealthiest families and the culture at Vassar reflected the elite background of its students. The school did not offer scholarships because it was thought that poor students would not live up to the high standards.
Sophia Smith's ideas for a woman's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, began around 1861, was planned by about 1868, and by 1875 a school had opened. Sophia Smith had considered the founding of a woman's college or possibly the founding of a deaf mute institution.
"There was then no woman's college in New England. Vassar College in Poughkeepsie had been founded not three months before though it was not opened to students until four years later, in 1865. Not many of the leading educators in New England in 1861 were ready for a woman's college which would give to young women educational advantages equal to what our young men receive in their colleges I say this from personal knowledge of the fact."-- (Rev. John M. Greene, Celebration of the Quarter-Centenary of Smith College, 1900). Another founding innovation of Smith Cottage was the adoption of the "cottage principle" which was felt to be better for young women than housing them in one large building. Lawrence House was built on this ideal.
In regard to Smith, its President Seelye said: "Hitherto no college for women had started without a preparatory department, none had required Greek for entrance, and in the majority of them both the quantity and quality of the work demanded was little more and often less than that accomplished in the best secondary schools. Vassar was the only existing college for women worthy of the name and it was then incumbered (sic) with a large preparatory department and had not placed itself on a par with the best colleges for men in its requirements for admission" (Historical Address on Smith College of President Seelye, 1900).
Around the time Martha Mason attended Smith, women's "coordinate" colleges began to open. These were female institutions which were affiliated with established men's colleges and included Radcliffe at Harvard (1879), Barnard at Columbia (1889), and Pembroke at Brown (1891). In contrast to Smith, Pembroke's classes were held at a grammar school that had once been associated with Brown. After the young men went home at two o'clock, the women arrived to learn from their professors in a classroom on the second floor. The school had no lights, so the women worked until the daylight was too dim to read by. Official recognition of the college as a body of the university came in 1896. The college received its own faculty in 1903.
Also in contrast to Smith, Barnard College's original 1889 home was a rented brownstone at 343 Madison Avenue, New York City, where a faculty of six offered instruction to 14 students in the School of Arts, as well as to 22 "specials", who lacked the entrance requirements in Greek and so enrolled in science. When Columbia University announced in 1892 its impending move to Morningside Heights, Barnard built a new campus. Today only Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley, of the seven sisters, remain women-only schools.
Martha Mason was born May 4, 1872 in Plymouth, Massachusetts of Albert and Lydia Mason. Her father (1836-1905) was a lawyer, who was a member of the state House of Representatives and became a Chief Justice in 1890 in Norfolk County Superior Court. He presided, with other judges, over the Lizzie Borden trial.
Martha Mason, who remained single all her life, was secretary of her class and later became a teacher of English of several schools in Brookline and Waltham. At Smith, she was alumnae trustee and held office as the auditor up to the turn of the century. She later served as Assistant Dean of Women at the University of Wisconsin and became by 1920, Principal of the School for Girls in Waltham. She died in Port Chester, New York on May 3, 1954 at age 82.
Print Inquire