Dr. Matthew Guthrie’s 'Letter on the Education of the Female Nobility in Russia,' 1781

• In Event: How "Enlightened" Was Late-Eighteenth-Century Russia?

Abstract

Dr. Matthew Guthrie (1743-1807) spent his career in Russia, primarily as the chief medical officer to the Land Corps of Noble Cadets for more than forty years. In 1781, he composed a lengthy letter to John Howard (1726-1790) about the remarkable achievements of Catherine the Great’s new girls’ school in St. Petersburg, resulting in Howard’s inclusion of Russia in the third edition of his The State of the Prisons in England and Wales (1784). This paper will analyze Guthrie’s letter in the context of his lengthy career evaluating Russian health and his assessment on the value of female education in the Enlightenment, as well as its impact on Howard’s advocacy for prison reform.

Author

• Matthew P. Romaniello, Weber State U