Catherine Macaulay and her Call for Educational Equality

Gabrielle Birchak/ March 31, 2024/ Early Modern History, Modern History

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As Women’s His­to­ry Month ends, I thought it would be an ide­al time to relaunch my pod­cast, Math Sci­ence His­to­ry. And so, to close the month, I want to do my first sea­son four pod­cast on Cather­ine Macaulay. Macaulay was born in 1731 as Cather­ine Saw­bridge. She was a British his­to­ri­an, an edu­ca­tor, and a philoso­pher who made exten­sive con­tri­bu­tions to fem­i­nism in the late eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry. She is promi­nent­ly known for her work titled His­to­ry of Eng­land. This tome was an eight-vol­ume body of work pub­lished between 1763 and 1783. At one point, it even out­sold David Hume’s ver­sion of His­to­ry of England.

Her fam­i­ly was mid­dle class, but she was edu­cat­ed at home. This was because there was no for­mal edu­ca­tion for women at this time. Regard­less, she became well-versed in clas­si­cal lit­er­a­ture, phi­los­o­phy, and his­to­ry. At age twen­ty-five, she pub­lished her first body of work, Obser­va­tions on the Reflec­tions of the Hon­or­able Edmund Burke. It was her response to Burke’s work titled Reflec­tions on the Rev­o­lu­tion in France. Her work was admired for defend­ing the French Rev­o­lu­tion and her cri­tique of the British polit­i­cal sys­tem. Addi­tion­al­ly, Macaulay’s response point­ed out Burke’s anti­quat­ed and oppressed view of women’s edu­ca­tion and the lack thereof.

Her work, His­to­ry of Eng­land, was wide­ly praised. It was con­sid­ered suc­cinct and filled with valu­able schol­ar­ship. Most impor­tant­ly, it depart­ed from tra­di­tion­al his­to­ries, most of which were writ­ten by men and focused on the activ­i­ties of Kings and Queens. Alter­na­tive­ly, Maccauley’s work posi­tioned people’s activ­i­ty as the axis of the nar­ra­tive. Addi­tion­al­ly, in this work and many of her oth­er works, she rea­soned that the his­to­ry of Eng­land was made pos­si­ble by the sig­nif­i­cant role of women and their con­tri­bu­tions. She also argued that tra­di­tion­al male his­to­ri­ans often over­looked the val­ue of women in their place in his­to­ry. Final­ly, in many oth­er works, she spoke up for women. She con­demned the treat­ment of women, advo­cat­ing for women’s rights and their access to education.

How­ev­er, I am most impressed with her work titled Let­ters on Edu­ca­tion. This body of work was pub­lished in 1790, and it was a trea­tise that advo­cat­ed the inclu­sion of women in edu­ca­tion. She was undoubt­ed­ly a vision­ary who often argued that women and young girls deserve access to pub­lic instruc­tion. She had writ­ten about an edu­ca­tion­al plan that includ­ed equal­i­ty between girls and boys. In doing so, she expressed that by valu­ing human nature in every­body, we can all devel­op great human poten­tial.¹ Final­ly, she argued the impor­tance of coed­u­ca­tion­al set­tings, not­ing how indi­vid­u­als, regard­less of gen­der, could learn from each oth­er. By keep­ing an open mind, indi­vid­u­als could learn how to dis­ci­pline their minds by “reject­ing the dic­tates of judg­ment (and) improp­er asso­ci­a­tions of ideas.”²

In Let­ters on Edu­ca­tion, she pro­posed an edu­ca­tion that did not rein­force soci­etal rules. Instead, she pushed for the idea that the learn­er needs to think inde­pen­dent­ly from Pub­lic opin­ion. She stressed the impor­tance of dis­miss­ing social opin­ions regard­ing our gen­ders. In doing so, she believed that human nature and human thought would stop repeat­ing social thought. Fur­ther­more, by let­ting go of social opin­ions, we could cre­ate an edu­ca­tion where­in our brains would not be just a blank slate where­in any­body could write our thoughts for us. In oth­er words, she stressed the impor­tance of think­ing for one­self and not reflect­ing gen­er­al voic­es in soci­ety. If she were alive today, she would prob­a­bly say, stop repost­ing oth­er people’s opin­ions and cre­ate your own.

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Macaulay graced this plan­et for six­ty years until she died on June 22, 1791. Her works inspired the author Mary Woll­stonecraft, who praised her as a “woman of the great­est abil­i­ties.”³ Sad­ly, the two nev­er met. They could only exchange cor­re­spon­dence for six months before Macaulay’s pass­ing. Woll­stonecraft expressed her immense grief over her pass­ing in her own work, A Vin­di­ca­tion of the Rights of Woman.

Woll­stonecraft wrote that Macaulay’s death did not result in a right­ful good­bye. And for that, she was deeply sad. This month reminds us of the many women who have forged paths over thou­sands of years so that we can stand where we are today. Many of those women also nev­er received a right­ful good­bye. We do not even know about many of those women. And so, as we close out Women’s His­to­ry Month, I want to acknowl­edge how much women have also shaped this world. Our con­tri­bu­tion to this plan­et is more than just our voic­es. We cre­at­ed the men who also walk on this plan­et. And we con­tin­ue to do so. Women’s His­to­ry Month is a valu­able time to rec­og­nize our future and our places in it. We deserve more than we are giv­en, espe­cial­ly by the men we cre­at­ed. Let’s stay dili­gent and nev­er lose sight of the fact that if we look away, we will con­tin­ue to lose many rights. Some of these rights include access to qual­i­ty health care, includ­ing abor­tion, access to edu­ca­tion, and access to jobs, which have been denied to us for gen­er­a­tions upon generations.

Women’s His­to­ry Month is not just about our his­to­ry but our future. So here is to the future of women. May we think for our­selves, fight for the oppressed, seek equal­i­ty, help the mar­gin­al­ized, and make this world a bet­ter place for everyone. 

Until next time, carpe diem!

Gabrielle

1. Titone, Con­nie. “CHAPTER THREE: The Impact of Macaulay’s View of Human Nature on Her Edu­ca­tion­al Phi­los­o­phy.” Coun­ter­points 171 (2004): 37–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42977514. ↩︎
2. Catharine Macaulay Gra­ham, Let­ters on Edu­ca­tion; with Obser­va­tions on Reli­gious and Meta­phys­i­cal Sub­jects (Dublin: H. Cham­ber­laine, 1790). ↩︎
3. Loos­er, Devoney. “‘Those His­tor­i­cal Lau­rels Which Once Graced My Brow Are Now in Their Wane’: Catharine Macaulay’s Last Years and Lega­cy.” Stud­ies in Roman­ti­cism 42, no. 2 (2003): 203–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/25601616. ↩︎