Den højere Dannelsesanstalt for Damer, from 1861 Femmerske Kursus til Uddannelse af Skolelærerinder and from 1885 Femmers Kvindeseminarium , was a teacher's training seminary for women in Copenhagen in Denmark, founded in 1846 and closed in 1937-1938. It was the first secondary educational institution for women in Denmark.
History
Pioneer institution
In 1845, the Copenhagen educational direction founded a new school authority to control the qualifications for professionalprivate school teachers in the capital from that point on. Most private schools in Copenhagen was managed by women teachers, but as there were no secondary schools open for women, it was not possible for them to have any formal training as teachers or to pass the new regulations. In order to solve this issue, a teacher's seminary for women was founded in 1846 by Annestine Beyer and Emil Bojsen to address this problem, named Den højere Dannelsesanstalt for Damer. Initially, the school shared its localities with the Døtreskolen af 1791, itself the perhaps most prestigious girls' school in Denmark and until then an informal training school for women as many women teachers were pupils there as children and allowed to practice as assistant teachers there. Den højere Dannelsesanstalt for Damer was the first instiution of secondary education for women in Denmark. In order to meet all formal qualifications, the school employed male teachers, as they were until that point the only teachers with formal qualifications, a problem the school was founded to address.
Reforms
In 1859, a nation-wide reform introduced the right for women to pass training exams as teachers in Denmark. This was a major step in women's rights in Denmark, but it also presented a problem, as there was no secondary education school for women with qualifications to issue exams to its students. When Annestine Beyer was asked in 1860 by two women, Emma Holmsted and Hedvig Rosing, if it would be possible for them to make use of the new law and pass their exams at her school, Beyer decided to re-organize her school to met with the regulations needed for a school to be able to issue exams. In 1861, she opened a teacher's examen course in her school with the cooperation of the male teachers Nicolai Femmer and Godfred Bohr, which made it possible for women to be given formal exams in Denmark. Beyer retired in 1880 and Bohr in 1886, and the school was taken over by Nicolai Femmer who named it accordingly. In 1901, a Volksschule seminary, the Kbh.s Forskoleseminarium, was also opened on the initiative of Kirstine Frederiksen and Emilie Jansen The school was closed in 1937, with the Kbh.s Forskoleseminarium closing the following year.
