¹ Kaestle, Carl F. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780–1860 (New York, 1983), 4–9. Blacks, who were not considered citizens, were not included in the equation.Google Scholar

² “Native American Bulletin,” June 1842, scrapbook, St. Louis University Archives, St. Louis, Mo.Google Scholar

³ Duchesne, Philippine to Barat, Madeleine Sophie 1 Mar. 1827. All letters are in the Religious of the Sacred Heart Archives, St. Louis Mo., unless otherwise noted. Shepard, Elihu H. The Autobiography of Elihu H. Shepard, Formerly Professor of Languages in St. Louis College (St. Louis, 1869), 111; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifth Census, 1830 (Washington, D.C., 1830). On schools in early St. Louis, see also Scharf, J. Thomas History of St Louis City and County, from the Earliest Periods to the Present Day: Including Biographical Sketches of Representative Men (Philadelphia, 1883), 1: 823–28; “Examination at Mr. Lovejoy's School,” Missouri Republican, 7 Oct. and 30 Dec. 1828. Schools were usually advertised in the local newspaper. Advertisements in the Missouri Republican are therefore a good indicator of the educational situation in the city. Among the female and coeducational schools advertised in the Missouri Republican were “Mr. & Mrs. Douglass’ Seminary for the Education of Young Ladies and Gentlemen,” Missouri Republican, 21 Sep. 1830; the St. Louis Female Academy, under the superintendence of “Rev. Mr. Davis and family,” ibid., 16 Mar. 1830; and the St. Louis Female Seminary, under the direction of “Mr. Robbins & Sister,” ibid., 23 Mar. 1830. In addition, Shepard, Elihu H. and his wife Mary were conducting their coeducational institution on Fourth Street.Google Scholar

⁴ Troen, Selwyn K. The Public and the Schools: Shaping the St. Louis School System, 1838–1920 (Columbia, Mo., 1975), 8, 13; “Infant School,” Missouri Republican, 22 Jan. 1831. In 1830 “Philopaidias,” in a letter to the editor of the Missouri Republican, 23 Feb. 1830, warned against the foundation of an infant school as long as no free institutions for older children existed in the city. A “St. Louis Philanthropic School” had actually been founded in December 1826, but even it was not free in the beginning, charging six dollars tuition per annum, and an extra dollar for the use of books and pens. Six months passed before it solicited donations for “those who fe[lt] unable to pay for it themselves.” The regular advertisements of the institution in the Missouri Republican suddenly terminated in June 1827, and by 1830 it had apparently closed down. Missouri Republican, 21 Dec. 1826 and 7 June 1827.Google Scholar

⁵ The French term pensionnat and its English translation “boarding school” are used interchangeably in this article.Google Scholar

⁶ The following records are in the Religious of the Sacred Heart Archives: “Plan d'Etude, 1833“; “List of First Pupils of the Old City House, 1827–1834”; Student Registers for the Pensionnat or Boarding School, 1825–72; and Student Account Book for the Demi-Pensionnat or Day School, 1840–60. Day school student accounts are missing for the years 1835 through 1839.Google Scholar

⁷ Registers; Account Books; Louise Callan, R.S.C.J. Philippine Duchesne: Frontier Missionary of the Sacred Heart, 1769–1852, intro. Ritter, Joseph E. S.T.D. (Westminster, Md., 1957), 512; Callan, The Society of the Sacred Heart in North America, intro. Gilbert J. Garraghan S. J. (New York, 1937), 215; Duchesne to Joseph Rosati, bishop of St. Louis, 3 Mar. 1830; Duchesne to Barat, 23 Mar. 1828; “St. Louis Female Academy,” Missouri Republican, 16 Mar. 1829; “St. Louis Female Seminary,” ibid., 23 Mar. 1830; “Mr. Lawrence's Seminary,” ibid., 22 Mar 1831. “St. Louis Female Academy,” ibid., 28 June 1831; “French and English Female Academy,” ibid., 30 Aug. 1831. Callan's biography of Philippine Duchesne, the foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Missouri, is primarily a compilation of Duchesne's correspondence. Some of the letters cited on the following pages can be found in part or in full in that volume. Callan is quoted for letters not available in the Society Archives in St. Louis.Google Scholar

⁸ Shepard, Autobiography, 103; Primm, James Neal Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri, 2d ed. (Boulder, Colo., 1990), 137, 147; “List of First Pupils”; Duchesne to Barat, 5 Oct. 1834; Registers; Account Book.Google Scholar

⁹ Catherine, M. Mooney, R.S.C.J., Philippine Duchesne: A Woman with the Poor (New York, 1990), 92; Dolan, Jay P. The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, N.Y., 1985), 251; Callan, Duchesne, 544. While the literature, such as Dolan's book, mentions the presence of Protestants at Catholic academies, it does not explore the reasons for this phenomenon.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Registers; Account Book; Duchesne to Barat, 5 June 1846. The day school registers do not identify pupils by religious background, and a statistical analysis of the academy must be restricted to the boarding school. However, as Duchesne reported the academy to be two-thirds Protestant in 1846, at a time when the entering class in the pensionnat was one-half non-Catholic, the ratio of Protestants was likely to be at least as high in the day as in the boarding school. Also, during the first ten years or so of the academy, record-keeping was unfortunately sketchy and the religious affiliation of many students was not recorded. Still, enough data are available to clearly indicate a trend; Sacred Heart attendance patterns regarding age and length of enrollment reflected the norm at antebellum academies. Solomon, Barbara Miller In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (New Haven, Conn., 1985), 22–24.Google Scholar

¹¹ Dominique Sadoux, R.S.C.J. and Pierre Gervais, S.J. eds., La vie religieuse: Premieres constitutions des religieuses de la Société du Sacré-Coeur: Texte et commentaire (Paris, 1986), 74–75.Google Scholar

¹² Callan, Sacred Heart, 205 209–10, 746; Sadoux, and Gervais, eds., Vie religieuse, 74.Google Scholar

¹³ Duchesne to Barat, 23 Mar. 1828, 28 Nov. 1828; Callan, Duchesne, 532; “Diocese of St. Louis,” The Metropolitan Catholic Almanac and Laity's Directory (1846–47, 1849–50). In earlier years this publication was variously titled The Catholic Calendar and Laity's Directory (1834) and The United States Catholic Almanac or Laity's Directory (1835–37). Published annually in Baltimore, it listed statistics on the Catholic church in the United States. No specific figures are available for part of the 1830s and 1840s, and for all of the 1850s, but the consistently large enrollment during the early years and between 1845 and 1850 suggests a continuous high attendance at the free school.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Callan, Sacred Heart, 205.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The term religious refers to a member of a religious order under monastic vows and is here used interchangeably with the term sister. Ibid., 203; Mooney, Duchesne, 129–30, 178; Duchesne to Barat, 15 Feb. 1819 and 5 Oct. 1834.Google Scholar

¹⁶ “Diocese of St. Louis,” Catholic Almanac (various titles) (1834–57); Duchesne to Barat, 23 Mar. 1828; Callan, Duchesne, 473, 513–14, 529, 552; Mooney, Duchesne, 176; Callan, Sacred Heart, 205, 209. Many of the “very nice clothes” for the orphans were donated by students from a wealthy Sacred Heart school in Louisiana. Callan, Duchesne, 545.Google Scholar

¹⁷ “Diocese of St. Louis,” Catholic Almanac (1839); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixth Census, 1840 (Washington, D.C., 1840). The census of 1840 counted a white city population of 14,407, with 1,127 children between the ages of five and nine, and another 1,048 children between the ages of ten and fourteen. My figures for 1839 are an estimate of what the school-age population (white children between the ages of seven and twelve) should have been, measured against the city's growth between 1835 (8,316) and 1840 (16,439). In 1840, girls outnumbered boys by around 150.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Callan, Duchesne, 465.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Duchesne to Barat, 28 Nov. 1828, 18 May 1829, Apr. 1834, and 5 Oct. 1834; Callan, Duchesne, 528. The furniture for the academy and other school equipment was inherited from the old St. Louis College. Callan, Sacred Heart, 200.Google Scholar

²⁰ “Literary Exhibition,” Shepherd of the Valley, 27 Sep. 1833; Callan, Duchesne, 558.Google Scholar

²¹ Duchesne to Barat, 13 May and 9 July 1827; Callan, Duchesne, 462, 491; “Communauté du Sacré Coeur de Jésus de St. Louis, depuis 1827 jusqu'à 1850 inclusivement,” Religious of the Sacred Heart Archives.Google Scholar

²² Callan, Duchesne, 491; Duchesne to Barat, 18 May 1829, 3 July and 25 Aug. 1828, 1 Feb. 1830, and 2 Mar. 1834.Google Scholar

²³ Duchesne to Barat, 18 Aug. and 9 Sep. 1827, 23 Mar. and 25 Aug. 1828, 18 May and 11 Dec. 1829, and 1 Feb. 1830; Callan, Duchesne, 492, 531.Google Scholar

²⁴ Duchesne to Barat, 25 Aug. 1828; Mooney, Duchesne, 191, 207.Google Scholar

²⁵ Duchesne to Barat, 9 July 1827; Callan, Duchesne, 531, 546; “List of First Pupils”; “Communauté du Sacré Coeur de Jésus de Saint Louis.”Google Scholar

²⁶ Mooney, Duchesne, 179–80.Google Scholar

²⁷ Duchesne to Barat, 13 Sep. 1829 and 22 July 1828; Callan, Sacred Heart, 210; idem, Duchesne, 500, 511, 536.Google Scholar

²⁸ Duchesne to Lane, William Carr 9 Apr. 1828, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis; Duchesne to Rosati, 20 Aug. 1829 and 3 Sep. 1830; Callan, Sacred Heart, 210; “Literary Exhibition,” Shepherd of the Valley, 15 Sep. 1832, 27 Sep. 1833; Duchesne to Barat, 5 Oct. 1834; “XL Pour L'Amerique. S.C.J.M. Paris, 11 Septembre 1835,” Lettres circulaires de la Vénérable Mère Madeleine-Sophie Barat. Séconde Partie: Lettres pour les Supérieures, leur Conseil, et les Economes (Roehampton, 1904).Google Scholar

²⁹ Billington, Ray Allen The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (New York, 1938); Faherty, William B. Dream by the River: Two Centuries of Saint Louis Catholicism, 1766–1980, rev. ed. (St. Louis, Mo., 1981), 44–48, 76; idem, “Nativism and Midwestern Education: The Experience of Saint Louis University, 1832–1856,” History of Education Quarterly 8 (Winter 1968): 447–58.Google Scholar

³⁰ Duchesne to Lane, 9 and 10 Apr. 1828, and Lane to Duchesne, [10 Apr.] 1828, Missouri Historical Society.Google Scholar

³¹ Callan, Duchesne, 528. Rosati's letter dated from February 1832; Duchesne to Barat, 20 Dec. 1835; Registers.Google Scholar

³² On competition see, besides advertisements in the Missouri Republican, Callan, Duchesne, 528.Google Scholar

³³ Catholic Calendar (1834); Mooney, Duchesne, 211. Though Latin was not officially advertised as a subject of instruction, it was taught in the academy. See Rourke's, Mary Ann recollections, quoted in Callan, Duchesne, 546; Catalogue of the Officers, Teachers, and Pupils of the Hartford Female Seminary, for the Summer Term of 1828 (n.p., n.d.), 7–15; The Annual Catalogue of the Hartford Female Seminary, together with an Account of the Internal Arrangements, Course of Study, and Mode of Conducting the Same (Hartford, Conn., 1831), 9; Catalogue of the Members of Troy Female Seminary, for the Academic Year, Commencing September 16, 1829, and Ending August 4, 1830 (n.p., n.d.). On the development of the antebellum curriculum, see Solomon, Educated Women, 23; and Woody, Thomas A History of Women's Education in the United States (New York, 1929), 1: 409–22. The study of ancient languages was not generally introduced until the 1850s.Google Scholar

³⁴ See, for example, the curricula of the “St. Louis Female Academy,” Missouri Republican, 28 June 1831; “Seminary, Mr. Lawrence's “ ibid., 22 Mar. 1831; “St. Louis Female Seminary,” ibid., 15 Feb. 1831; “French and English Female Academy,” ibid., 30 Aug. 1831.Google Scholar

³⁵ Mr. Lawrence's Seminary and the St. Louis Female Seminary added French classes. “Mr. Lawrence's Seminary“ Missouri Republican, 16 Mar. 1829 and 22 Mar. 1831; “St. Louis Female Seminary,” ibid., 23 Mar. 1830 and 15 Feb. 1831; “French and English Female Academy,” ibid., 30 Aug 1831. “Miss Le Pan,” ibid., 7 Jan. 1836; “Day and Evening School… for the Study of the French Language,” ibid., 28 Dec. 1830; “French and Spanish Languages,” ibid., 7 Oct. 1834; “Académie Francaise,” ibid., 2 Apr. 1836; “Académie Francaise et Espagnol,” ibid., 12 Apr. 1836. On the general fashionableness of French instruction, see Woody, Women's Education, 1: 412.Google Scholar

³⁶ Willard, Emma An Address to the Public, (Particularly) to the Members of the Legislature of New-York, Proposing a Plan for Improving Female Education, 2d ed. (Middlebury, Conn., 1819), 9–17, 19, 44. Catharine Beecher criticized the state of women's education in 1831. Catalogue Hartford Female Seminary, 1831, 29. Also see Woody, Women's Education, 2: 143–47, on the mediocre quality of many female academies during the antebellum period.Google Scholar

³⁷ Woody, Women's Education, 1: 410. In March 1828, Lovejoy, Elijah P. and Thaw, John introduced their coeducational institution as one “of a different character from any present in operation. Separate classes will be established,” they announced, “having each its appropriated studies prescribed, and the members of the lower classes will be regularly advanced in the order of their improvement.” “Education,” Missouri Republican, 25 Mar. 1828.Google Scholar

³⁸ “d'Etude, Plan 1833“; “Règlement [des Etudes], 1833”; “Reglement [des Etudes], 1852”; [?] Druilhet, S.J. “Conferences on Education, 1827.” These records are in the Religious of the Sacred Heart Archives. Catholic Almanac (1837); Callan, Duchesne, 547.Google Scholar

³⁹ “d'Etude, Plan 1833.” Beecher's Hartford Seminary used similar guidelines as early as 1828. The course catalog of that year contained specifics on how to teach arithmetic, history, geography, and composition. Catalogue Hartford Female Seminary, 1828. Google Scholar

⁴⁰ “Conference V: Helping Children Advance in Studies,” in Druilhet, “Conferences,” 18–23.Google Scholar

⁴¹ “Conference III: Means of Forming Your Children,” “Conference VI: A Class Mistress’ Good Qualities,” “Conference VII: A Class Mistress’ Faults,” and “On Training the Children,” in Druilhet, “Conferences,” 10–13, 23–36.Google Scholar

⁴² “Constitutions,” in Vie religieuse, 29–33; “Conference I,” in Druilhet, “Conferences,” 1–2; “Plan des Cours Religion,“ in “Plan d'Etude, 1833.”Google Scholar

⁴³ Catholic Almanac, 1837. Specifics on policies toward Protestants unfortunately are not available. Yet if significant exemptions had been granted, the school prospectus would have no doubt mentioned them to put Protestants at ease; Duchesne to Rosati, 15 July 1827; Duchesne to Barat, 3 July 1828 and 5 Oct. 1834; Rosati to Duchesne, 29 Mar. 1831.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Callan, Duchesne, 508–10; Duchesne to Rosati, 29 Dec. 1830; Rosati to Duchesne, 29 Dec. 1830.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Lane, Duchesne to [10 Apr.] 1828.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Account Book; Registers.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Duchesne to Barat, 18 May 1829, 2 Mar. 1834, 20 Dec. 1835, 22 May 1836, and 5 June 1846.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Catholic Almanac (1837); Druilhet, “Conferences,” 3. On the children's devotion to the sisters, see Barat, Duchesne to 21 Mar. 1833; and Rourke's, Mary Ann recollections in Callan, Duchesne, 546–47.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Callan, Duchesne, 547.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ “Constitutions,” in Vie religieuse, 66–67; Mooney, Duchesne, 91; Callan, Sacred Heart, 15; Willard, Address, 28–43; Dolan, American Catholic Experience, 250–51; Norton, Mary Beth Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800 (Boston, 1980), 242–55, 281–87, 297–99; Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Williamsburg, Va., 1980), 199–213, 269–88; Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven, Conn., 1977); Kaestle, Pillars, 84–88.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Abbott, J. S. C. quoted in Cott, Bonds, 85; Willard, Address, 25.Google Scholar

⁵² “St. Louis Female Academy,” Missouri Republican, 16 Mar 1829. “Female Education,“ ibid., 22 Sep 1829. “Education,“ ibid., 25 Mar 1828. Advertisements throughout the 1830s reverberated with the moral theme: “Cottage Seminary,” ibid., 19 Dec 1834. “St. Louis Institute for Young Ladies,“ ibid., 4 Jan 1837. “Miss Le Pan,“ ibid., 18 Oct 1837.Google Scholar

⁵³ “Règlement [des Etudes], 1833“; Willard, Address, 33, 40; Catalogue Hartford Female Seminary, 1828, 11–14; Catalogue Hartford Female Seminary, 1831, 7–8.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Catalogue Hartford Female Seminary, 1828, 13; Willard, Address, 55, 28. On the widespread advocacy of religious instruction, see Woody, Women's Education, 1: 397–99; and Solomon, Educated Women, 25. Google Scholar

⁵⁵ “Constitutions of 1815,” nos. 172–73, in Mooney, Duchesne, 91.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Willard, Address, 28; “Plan des Cours de Religion,” in “Plan d'Etude, 1833”; “Règlement [des Etudes], 1852,” 37; Druilhet, “Conferences,” 10.Google Scholar