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Amalia Holst (née Amalia von Justi; 1758–1829) was a German writer, intellectual, and feminist. Her work examined traditional pedagogy and challenged Enlightenment writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She is often called the German counterpart to Mary Wollstonecraft. There is still little known about Amalia Holst’s life. She rose to prominence in the late 1700’s through her works as a teacher, although she became more widely recognized in the 1970’s after her work was rediscovered and published.

Life

Amalia Holst was born in 1758 in Mecklenburg. She is the daughter of Johanna Maria Magdalena Marchand and Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi and the oldest of six children from her father’s second marriage. Her father was a well-known political economist and the Prussian chief inspector of mines. He was also a feminist, who published pieces advocating for improved women’s education. When Holst was 10 years old, he was accused of embezzling funds and imprisoned in Küstrin where he died several years later. Although he was only in her life for a short time, Justi shaped many of Holst’s feminist beliefs.

After her father’s death, the family was disoriented. Their possessions had to be dissolved. Amalia’s mother went to live with her brother, who was a pastor in Brunswick. Her younger sisters were lodged into a monastery in Potsdam and her brother was admitted into a Danish cadet school. It is unknown what happened to Amalia during this time.

In large part due to Justi’s progressive beliefs, Holst was one of only very few women to receive a college education during this time. She is also said to have received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Kiel.

Her name appeared again 20 years later in 1791 when she published her first major work, Bemerkungen über die Fehler unserer modernen Erziehung von einer praktischen Erzieherin (Observations on the Errors of Our Modern Education by a Practical Teacher). The title of this work suggests that she made her living as an educator in the years prior. That same year at the age of 33, she married Ludolf Holst, who was a lawyer as well as the director of the Pedagogical Institute in Hamburg-St Georg . They had three children together, one son and two daughters.

From about 1792-1802, Holst was the headmistress of the preschool that her husband oversaw. During this time, she also opened several small schools in Hamburg, Wittenberg and Boitzenberg. These schools were short-lived however, and the reason for their closings is not known.

Holst published “Breife über Elisa, oder das Weib wie es seyn sollte” (Letters on Elisa, or Women as they Ought to be), the second of her three known works, in 1799. It was written in response to the famous novel, which according to Holst dangerously extolled the marital oppression of the title character. In it she also strongly advocated for marital equality and female autonomy. She argued that women should be defined as human beings first and wives second. This was the beginning of her involvement in a larger debate about feminism occurring during this time.

In 1802, Holst published her final and most well-known work: Über die Bestimmung des Weibes zur höhern Geistesbildung (On the Purpose of Women’s Advanced Intellectual Development).

Holst passed away in Grob-Timkenberg on January 6th, 1829.

Major Works

Observations on the Errors of Our Modern Education by a Practical Teacher

Published in 1791, it criticizes widely accepted pedagogical theories, specifically those of Campe and Basedow. Holst analyzes their ideas from the perspective of an educator, and points out the flaws and contradictions within them. She also calls attention to the impractical nature of their ideas.

On the Purpose of Women’s Advanced Intellectual Development

This was Holst’s most popular work. In it, she makes the case for higher, ungendered education for males and females alike. This notion was very radical: unlike many of the prominent female-education advocates before her such as La Roche, Herder and Goethe, Holst rejected the idea of separate curriculums for each gender, believing that women could and should learn the same things men do. This was not an accepted idea at the time. Her ideas diverged from most equal education advocates of her time as well, including the likes of Hippel, Wollstonecraft and Condorcet: while they were in favor of an advanced public coeducation system, Holst insisted on a professional maternal educator who would instruct her children in all academic disciplines from early childhood through adolescence. Only women who were thoroughly educated themselves were fit to educate the next generation, and thus Holst reasoned that every women was to be educated. She advocated for an in depth knowledge of history, the sciences, philosophy, geography and the arts. “Possessing half knowledge of something is worse than having no knowledge of it at all.” Holst stressed that the most important quality of an effective maternal educator was the ability to draw meaningful connections among all disciplines. She also placed an emphasis on individual perfection, urging women to continually engage in intellectual pursuits throughout the course of their lives.

She made several demands for female education:

• Women were to have complete freedom to study every subject
• They were to be given access to original sources, as opposed to those specifically written for women, which she claimed offered “superficial knowledge” and which “treat us like overgrown children.”
• Women of exceptional intellect were to have access to a formal university education. They were also to be free of the pressure to have children. She used philosophers Kant and Leibniz as examples, noting that both were celibate but their “immortal works, the offspring of their minds, have enriched the world.” Why then, Holst argued, shouldn’t the same apply to women?
• It was to be accepted that women were capable of achieving in the most advanced fields of thought. Holst asserts “there exists no proof that a woman’s mind cannot comprehend the higher sciences.”

Reception

She was criticized by her contemporaries for her radical stance, and thus, for violating her ‘feminine nature’.

Two points of criticism are held up to her: the first is that she demanded the right to education, specifically for women who were talented enough and those who could afford it. Secondly, she called for ingress of women into science but not other areas or professions. She is often criticised for narrowing down the paths a woman may take: a housekeeper, a companion, or an educator.

Holst has been criticized for the fact that she fought for women's educational law, but as a teacher she did not propose a concept for girls' education.

Legacy

She is memorialized in Judy Chicago’s installation art piece The Dinner Party which features a triangular table with 39 place settings, each commemorating important women in history. While she is not given a place setting, her name, along with the names of 998 other feminist icons, is inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the table.