42 West Washington Place
A friend having placed in our hands the Circular which intimates the plan of this school, we are struck by the simplicity, intelligent appreciation of, and devotion to, the honorable work undertaken that it evinces. Inquiry has confirmed these impressions.
There doubtless are parents in New York, and among the multitude there must be many, though a small majority compared with the whole, to whom the show of an establishment, the array of masters, and the contagion of factitious life are not so desirable for their children as a sincere culture and harmonious development of their powers. There must be some who do not wish for their daughters the premature airs of the woman, and who prefer the graceful manners which result from an elegant mind to a clumsy and tasteless mimicry of foreign airs and graces. There must be some who regard the school education of their children as a serious preparation for the school of life; some who seek in the teacher a wise friend for the child, rather than the upholsterer who is to hide by gay draperies the nakedness of its mind’s chambers. To such we would recommend an examination into the pretensions of this school; they are not pompously set forth, and are the more likely to be well founded. A promise is likely to be kept that is made with so much of heart and soul.
This is a boarding as well as a day school, and to parents in the country who wish for a time to exchange its far more favorable influences for those of the city, in view of the better instruction in various accomplishments that may there be found, this might be recommended as a safe place; where they will not suddenly be deprived of all the advantages of home. They will not, for the sake of improving in French and music, be deprived, for many months, of all better things, will not be left to trick the assistant or gossip about street acquaintance, and window flirtations, in absence of all other pleasure, except on regular reception evenings, but constitute to share the little daily duties and pleasures of domestic life. The name of Sedgwick alone is a recommendation to the school: It is associated with candor, benevolence and knowledge of the physical and moral laws, and we believe it is rarely in vain that one of a name should show such excellence; it kindles aspiration and imparts light to others who bear it.*
“The School of the Misses Sedgwick.” New-York Daily Tribune, 25 August 1845, p. 1.
