Ways of Wisdom: Moral Education in the Early National PeriodIn Ways of Wisdom, Jean Friedman traces how Jacob Mordecai and his family, German American Orthodox Jews, adopted the Anglo-Irish enlightened pedagogical system developed by Richard Lovell Edgeworth and his daughter Maria. In 1808 Mordecai founded the Warrenton Female Academy on the enlightened principles described in the Edgeworths’ guide, Practical Education, and he enlisted family members to teach and manage the school. Rachel Mordecai, inspired by her father’s progressive methods, initiated an Edgeworthian experiment in home education on her young stepsister, Eliza. Rachel’s diary, reproduced in full in Ways of Wisdom, chronicles the moral instruction of Eliza. While retaining the traditional didacticism of wisdom literature, the diary also describes Eliza’s resistance to enlightened discipline and method. Friedman’s case study bears particular importance for scholars as it qualifies and enriches our understanding of the American Enlightenment as an amalgam of religious and ethnic assumptions rather than a universal acceptance of Liberalism or Republicanism. Ways of Wisdom also offers an illuminating reinterpretation of “Republican Motherhood” as a culturally diverse and politically complicated domestic paradigm. |
Contents
MORDECAI FAMILY WISDOM | 1 |
ENLIGHTENED WISDOM | 35 |
WISDOM TESTED | 64 |
WAYS OF WISDOM | 84 |
WISDOM TRANSFORMED | 131 |
AFTERWORD | 151 |
Mordecai and Edgeworth Families | 241 |
Common terms and phrases
American August Aunt brother brother Solomon character child Christian culture daughter discipline domestic Edgeworth family Edgeworth to Frances Edgeworthstown Eliza Ellen Mordecai Emma emotional enlightened ethical Evangelical experience family members Fanny father fault feel fiction Francis Edgeworth friends girl Harriet Butler heart holiness Honora household Ibid Jacob Mordecai Jewish Jews Judaism Judith Lazarus to Ellen learned lessons lett literary Maria Edgeworth marriage married Mary method Modern Griselda moral Mordecai family Mordecai to Ellen Mordecai to Samuel Moses mother Myers MYFP Nonetheless North Carolina Orthodox Past Days pedagogy pleasure Practical Education Rachel Lazarus Rachel Mordecai diary Rachel Mordecai Lazarus rational religious republican Richard Lovell Edgeworth Richmond Samuel Mordecai sister Caroline sister Ellen sister Rachel social story taught teaching tell thought tion told traditional University Press virtue Warrenton Female Academy Wilmington wisdom wish women wrote York young
References to this book
Daily Life in the Early American Republic, 1790-1820: Creating a New Nation David S. Heidler,Jeanne T. Heidler No preview available - 2004 |