 She blames women themselves for failing to overcome the egotism and indifference of society, which that could do by treating each other as sisters and transcending social classes in a grand “social pact ... with all of humanity, with women of all conditions and all classes” (p. 51). Arguing that it is lack of education which leaves women powerless over their own lives and hence is the cause of their unhappiness, she insists on the reciprocal effect of education on “les moeurs” (social customs and beliefs), thus leaving open the possibility of radical social change (implicitly including the acceptance of single women as respected members of society). De Gamond emphasizes that even girls from wealthy families should master either a form of intellectual work or a specialized skill, for moral and psychological reasons, and as a practical means of supporting themselves should they end up without the usual familial resources.
These reflections are developed in the last two chapters, which treat women’s education. Herself an aristocrat, de Gamond was deeply concerned with the education of women of the classes populaires, and by extension, with their children. She proposes a remarkably well-thought-out system of child care and education for poor families: for the youngest children her proposal sounds like a combination between the modern French crèche and the école maternelle or grammar school. For slightly older girls there would be a “public school” option for the destitute, and for the more well-off, schools with a fee structure; but, other than a slightly different quality of uniforms and food, the education in these elementary schools would be the same. She stresses that her proposed educational system would benefit not only the poor but also women of the upper classes, whom, she claims, she pities more than anyone else for the precarity of their positions (controlled by the men in their lives) and their complete unpreparedness for work. The reader marvelling at how progressive this sounds is stopped short as de Gamond moves to her proposals for older girls, as here the schools clearly diverge by class, the poorer students being given only the option of what she calls écoles d’industrie, trade or vocational schools, which would furnish a pool of qualified workers from whom the upper classes could select their servants. To complete the plan and to carry it out, de Gamond proposes a fourth type of school, called (as in modern France) écoles normales, to train teachers, young women from poorer sectors of the upper classes. In the final letter she defends the notion of institutional education for girls, who were traditionally taught at home, and describes the contents of her proposed educational system in detail.
This book “already contains the ferment that was to be the basis of all Belgian feminism, that is the role of education in the improvement (épanouissement) of the condition of women” (Piette, p. 406). Only 26 at the time, de Gamond, the privileged daughter of a prominent and cultivated Brussels family, would go on to make many of her ideas a reality. Her political involvement had commenced with the 1830 revolutions. In 1832 she renounced Saint-Simonianism, after the scandals involving their “guru” Barthélemy-Prosper Enfantin, who preached free love for all but especially for himself, but she maintained numerous links to progressive milieux, later becoming an admirer of the utopian socialist Charles Fourier, and she remained a tireless advocate for the poor and for women’s education. Ignoring the many attacks on her ideas, in 1835 she and her friend Eugénie Poulet founded two schools, one for poor working women, and an école normale. In the 1840s, after a costly attempt to establish a Fourieriste phalanstère in Citeaux, de Gamond and her family suffered financial hardships, but she was eventually granted the post of “Inspectrice générale” of Belgian state girls’ schools. She was the first woman to hold such a position. After her death at the age of 48, her daughter Isabelle Gatti de Gamond continued her efforts, becomi