Founded 1787 | ||
Societetsskolan i Göteborg för döttrar (The Society School for Daughters in Gotheburg) or simply Societetsskolan (The Society School), also referred to as Brödraförsamlingens flickskola i Göteborg (The Girls' School of the Unity of the Brethren in Gothenburg) and Evangeliska Brödraförsamlingens flickskola i Göteborg (The Girls' School of the Unity of the Evangelical Brethren in Gothenburg), or, finally, as Salsskolan (The Hall School), was a Swedish girls' school managed by the congregation of the Moravian Church in Gothenburg from i November 1787 until 1857.
It is referred to as the first girls' school in Sweden, because it was the first institution to provide serious academic and secondary education to female students.
History
The school is often referred to as the first girls' school in Sweden. Technically, this is not correct, as they were numerous schools for girls before, but the distinction is made to separate it from the previous girls' schools; the earlier educational institutions for girls, starting with the Rudbeckii flickskola founded by Johannes Rudbeckius in Västerås in 1632, normally only gave a shallow education meant to foster the students to ideal wives and mothers, such as the French language, music, dance, manners, household tasks and sewing. This school was therefore a new form of girls' school by giving them serious academic education, and it is therefore called the first girls' school.
The school had the goal to give females a more equal education to males, in accordance with the ideals of gender equality which was prevalent for the Moravian Church. Besides the more traditional subjects such as sewing and household tasks, the subjects were Swedish, German, French, English, Geography, Mathematics, Drawing and Music. The official main subject of the school was Christian Ethic Morals. The school had a very good reputation and high popularity rate from the start, and the students came from the more wealthy parts of the burgher classes.
At the time of the introduction of compulsory elementary school in Sweden in 1842, it was one of five schools in Sweden to provide academic secondary education to female students; the others being Fruntimmersföreningens flickskola (1815) and Kjellbergska flickskolan (1833) in Gothenburg, Askersunds flickskola (1812) in Askersund and Wallinska skolan (1831) in Stockholm.
Cecilia Fryxell, counted as great reformer of women's education, was a teacher here in 1846-47. Among its students were the writer Emily Nonnen and the reform pedagogue Mathilda Hall.