The Royal Seminary, fully the Royal Advanced Female Teachers' Seminary (, abbreviated KHLS), was a normal school (teachers' college) in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. It was active from 1861 until 1943. It was the first

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

institution of higher academic learning open to women in Sweden. The Royal Normal School for Girls (') was a

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

attached to the Royal Seminary. It served as a feeder program for the seminary and was the first public

girls' school Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education, same-sex education, same-gender education, and gender-isolated education, is the practice of conducting education with male and female students attending separate classes, perhaps in se ...

in the country.

History

Background and foundation

The Royal Seminary was founded after the so-called ''Hertha'' debate over women's rights prompted by Fredrika Bremer's 1856 novel '' Hertha''. Swedish women (unless widowed or divorced) were then considered to be incompetent wards of their husbands, fathers or brothers under the

Civil Code of 1734 The Civil Code of 1734 ( Swedish: ''1734 års lag''), was a code of law passed by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates in 1734, and put in effect after it had been ratified by Frederick I of Sweden 23 January 1736. It became the foundation of the lat ...

and could be granted legal majority only by a personal petition to the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, parti ...

. The novel argued against that and supported female admission to institutions of higher education, ultimately successfully on both counts. The Swedish Parliament permitted women to petition their local courthouses instead of the king in 1858, and it finally granted legal majority to all women over the age of 25 in 1863. The call for entry to higher education was answered first by Stockholm's 1859 ('). Subsidised by influential men, the course provided free lectures and private recitations for elective classes covering

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mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

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, French, personal hygiene, and

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. When this proved hugely popular, it was expanded into a full normal school. On 23 December 1909, the philanthropist and social activist Maria Ribbing, one of the students of the Course of Education for Women, commented to the feminist magazine '' Dagny'' about her experience when the Course of Education for Women opened in 1859, half a century previously: :''"The Youth of today, who have perhaps sometimes satisfied their thirst of knowledge to the point of oversaturation, can not begin to understand the hunger for real knowledge that lived in so many women of that time."''Heckscher, Ebba, Några drag ur den svenska flickskolans historia: under fleres medverkan samlade, Norstedt & söner, Stockholm, 1914

Organization

The Royal Seminary for the Training of Female Teachers (') was inaugurated on 1 October 1861 and also free. In addition to the subjects provided by its predecessor, it offered courses in

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, English,

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and

pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

. The first head of the institution was Hilda Elfving, the governess of the royal princess Louise. It was organized along new lines by Jane Miller Thengberg in 1864, which made it the focus of study trips from other schools nationwide. The foremost purpose of the seminary was the training of female teachers for public

elementary schools A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

and girls' schools. The study period was three years, with a voluntary additional year. In 1873, the other Swedish universities were opened to women, but female students were initially rare. In the 1880s, the Royal Seminary was still described as the foremost centre for female higher education.A Gurli Linder, urn:sbl:10521, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (art av Lena Kåreland), hämtad 3 January 2015. It became increasingly obsolete as women gained greater access to other institutions, however, and was finally closed in 1943.

Royal Normal School for Girls

The Royal Normal School for Girls opened on 1 October 1864. It acted as a feeder programme and training ground for the Royal Seminary. The headmaster of the Royal Seminary acted as its principal, but it also had its own head teacher, who was always to be a female. Both of them were under the supervision of a directory of the state. It was the first public girls' school in the country and admitted girls with at least four years of

elementary education Primary education is the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary education. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first schools and middle schools, de ...

. The levels were six (initially five) of which the middle four levels lasted two years, which amounted to ten classes in all. Of the eleven classes available, three were defined as preparatory classes, and eight to the elementary classes. After eight years of study, students took the normal school graduation, which was roughly equivalent to that of the graduation of a male student from the gymnasium). The Normal School was to act as a role model for all the girls' schools in Sweden and to advertise the latest innovations and recommendations of state policy. The system of the school was what was to be referred to as the "normal school type", and the "8th classes girls' school", as it was called, became the customary definition to whether or not a girls' school could be called a proper secondary education school. Although it was not free, scholarships permitted fifteen free pupils and five reduced-fee pupils each term.

Notable students

A great number of notable personalities were students at the Royal Seminary during its existence. Among them were Albertina Carlsson, Emilia Fogelklou,

Selma Lagerlöf Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (, , ; 20 November 1858 – 16 March 1940) was a Swedish writer. She published her first novel, ''Gösta Berling's Saga'', at the age of 33. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she was ...

, Lilly Engström, Jeanna Oterdahl, Anna Maria Roos,

Anna Sandström ''Anna'' Maria Carolina Sandström (3 September 1854 – 26 May 1931) was a Swedish feminist, reform pedagogue and a pioneer within the educational system of her country. She is referred to as the leading reform pedagogue within female educati ...

, Maria Stenkula, Alice Tegnér, and

Anna Whitlock Anna Whitlock (13June 185216June 1930) was a Swedish reform pedagogue, journalist, suffragette and feminist. She was co-founder and twice chairperson of the National Association for Women's Suffrage. She was also the co-founder of the women's ...

References

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Citations

Bibliography

* . * . {{coord, 59.3348, N, 18.0760, E, source:wikidata-and-enwiki-cat-tree_region:SE, display=title Universities and colleges established in 1861 Educational institutions disestablished in 1943 Schools in Sweden 1861 establishments in Sweden 1943 disestablishments in Sweden History of Stockholm 19th-century establishments in Stockholm Former women's universities and colleges Defunct universities and colleges in Sweden Higher education in Stockholm 1861 in women's history Women's education in Sweden 20th-century disestablishments in Stockholm