Royal Seminary

The Royal Seminary, fully the Royal Advanced Female Teachers' Seminary (Swedish: Kungliga Högre Lärarinneseminariet, abbreviated KHLS), was a normal school (teachers' college) in , Sweden. It was active from 1861 until 1943. It was the first public institution of higher academic learning open to women in Sweden.

The Royal Normal School for Girls (Statens normalskola för flickor) was a secondary school attached to the Royal Seminary. It served as a feeder program for the seminary and was the first public girls' school in the country.

The Royal Seminary was founded after the so-called Hertha debate over women's rights prompted by Fredrika Bremer's 1856 novel Hertha. At the time, Swedish women (unless widowed or divorced) were considered incompetent wards of their husbands, fathers, or brothers under the Civil Code of 1734 and could only be granted legal majority by a personal petition to the Crown. The novel argued against this and supported female admission to institutions of higher education. It was ultimately successful on both counts. The Swedish Parliament permitted women to petition their local courthouses instead of the king in 1858 and finally granted legal majority to all women over the age of 25 in 1863. The call for entry to higher education was answered first by Stockholm's 1859 Learning Course for Women (Lärokursen för fruntimmer). Subsidized by influential men, the Learning Course provided free lectures and private recitations for elective classes covering religion, natural science, mathematics, history, grammar, literature, French, personal hygiene, and drawing. When this proved hugely popular, it was expanded into a full normal school.

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