" Society is full of abuses. Women complain of being brutally enslaved, badly brought up, badly educated, badly treated, and badly defended. All this is, unfortunately, true. These complaints are just, and do not doubt but that before long a thousand voices will bo uplifted to remedy the evil."—Lettres à Marcie.
The cry has gone forth. The plaint iu the drawing-room has been echoed by groans from the work-room. All reflecting womankind, from Lady Emmcline to the milliner's apprentice who wrote touchingly to Lord Ashley, make their moan. Thoughtful women in all ages have bewailed the cramping pressure of ignorance and jealous thraldom. 'Tis an old cry, though the note is now changed. Lady Mary Wortley charged her grand-daughter to hide the learning she might acquire; a wise woman of to-day might, with equal justice, caution her child to acquire her knowledge before she sports it. 'Tis an age of teaching. The craving mind may no longer feed where it lists. A system of "cramming" bears sway, from Bell's school to the senatehouse. No woman can complain of lack of teaching, nowadays; she may though still with reason sigh after education, Where every one teaches, and all are taught, who may he wise?
"Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers."
All popular outcries tend to codvulsions; and we of the nineteenth century, with our catechisms, epitomes, abstracts, memoriatechnica, "finishing schools," and droves of spirit-broken governesses, are suffering from the rebound of our grandmothers' tambour-frames and receipt-books.
To trace the growth of woman's desire after knowledge would be the task of a philosopher; for ns, it suffices to see that it is, that it has been from all ages. The barter of Paradise for the means of knowledge is the first recorded act of woman's life; she tempted man to forego nil tried blessings, for the untried boon of " knowing good and evil." Thenceforth, man wreaked his vengeance upon woman, for tie loss of taw and plenty, by keeping her ignorant, and, consequently, helpless. But since the day that Christianity dawned on the world, an emancipation of the weak out of the power of the strong has been silently progressing. The faint cry, uplifted at intervals, swelled into a chorus; there was a sudden rush; all the world clamoured for a better education for women; no wonder, in such a struggle, that the greater number mistook chaff and husks for bread. The movement was all too sudden. Education, in ns far as it implies intellectual and moral growth, is the work of life; its operations arc as secret and ns self-derived as the gradual shooting of the green blade into the wheat-car.
Now, when that cry of women after knowledge pierced the air, a thousand sprang up, mushroomwise, in a night, to answer it. Mothers who had only read their bibles and receipt-books found themselves unprepared for the emergency — we have so little patience, so little foresight. Then, teaching, that holy vocation of a woman, became a trade. An universal demand creates its own supply. Here was a tempting opening to all aspiring women, who were free to try a new field; the unmarried daughters of the gentry left with scanty portions, had, till now, been content to eke out their small incomes in trade; many were the gentlewomen, in our great-grandmothers' days, who lived in honoured independence, though they kept small shops, to which their old friends reported. They did not lose caste- because they sat for part of the day behind the counter. However, this refuge grew insecure from the outward pressure of public opinion in favour of refinement. The vast spread of colonisation at this juncture drew many bold spirits among the men from the warehouse. Women shared in the growing distaste for the ell-wand and the steel-yard. Many left their quiet homes for the school-rooms of halls and castles. As they mounted the stair, others came from a lower rank, and filled the vacant steps. The restless rage to push on Vhad stirred all classes. Those who, disappointed in their new stand, looked wistfully back to the old, found that when they would return they could not. There was no place left for them but that which they had chosen. Like much else, it looked best from a distance. Here, then, was a whole class of women driven into a new line, for which they had received no fitting preparation, As America and the Indies were filled by swarms of adventurers, marriage necessarily decreased, There was such an overplus of single women that the old order of things was subversed. Women must have bread to eat as well as men. If they have no husbands to toil for them, they must win food for themselves. They found, if they would not sink in the scale, they must work with their heads, and not with their hands. Must! oh, the ruthlessness of necessity! We know the late of the weed when mighty waters rush together. The new generation, thirsting to be taught, found teachers at their mercy, hanging between two ranks. Do the weak desire to learn what they may expect from the strong? Let them ponder deeply the governess system of the present day. This was the watch-word, "Teach us on our own terms, or work, and cease to be gentlewomen." To the newly risen race of governesses, even such equivocal gentility was preferable to a second change, though it was to be gained at the price of isolation. Time was when the daughters of poor clergymen, with pedigrees longer than their purses, found secure and honourable service as housekeepers and ladies'maids. A new order of things had come round. The still-room was no longer a safe retreat to decayed gentlewomen. A love of show kept pace with the desire of knowledge. A profligate adept in confectionary was preferred before a respectable woman, who knew the business of preserving order and decency better than the mysteries of the stew-pan and the ice-pail.
The policy of the world is to take advantage of want. It beecme apparent that a whole family of daughters might be taught by one of these single women, struggling for bread, for less than it formerly cost to send one girl to school. Where competition was so great, there was no difficulty in driving a bargain. The means of instruction might be had so cheaply, that the grocer's daughters could be taught to read Paul and Virginia in She original tongue, and to strum the Fall of Paris, In process of time, therefore, a governess became a necessary appanage in every family,
Whether it be right or wrong, as a general rule, for mothers to delegate their most sacred trust to hired strangers, we are not her to discuss. The tact exists. Is the system carried out fairly for all parties? Is there any question astir as to its abuse? Philanthropic eyes are scanning many social evils. Is it yet considered how far a whole race of women are dragging out weary lives under a mass of trials, the detail of which would fill a" blue book" by themselves? True, if the case were known, " a thousand voices" would be " uplifted." The miseries of the governess may even swell that sickening clamour about the " rights of women," which would never have been raised had women been true to themselves. But that trite saying in this case has its point. The modern governess system is a ease between woman and woman. Before one sex demands its due from the other, let it be iust to itself.
Punch has ably pleaded in the cause of salaries and qualifications. The statistics touching lunatic asylums give a frightful proportion of governesses in the list of the insane. But has the whole life in home schoolrooms ever beeu investigated? We ask this with a real wish to be informed, with a hope of directing eyes to this unknown page of human life. Have kind, ladylike, cultivated women ever reflected on the relation which subsists between themselves and others of like minds, and, perhaps, formerly in similar circumstances? Have they ever tried to put themselves in the position of the young women devoting themselves to the education of their children, who yet live as strangers in the midst of homes? Let us examine an ordinary case, one that is happening daily under our own eyes. The parents of a large family find they must send their daughters, into the world to gain their bread. They stretch some points to qualify them for the task. In nine cases out of ten, they arc destined to teach, The daughter has no chance of gaining a situation, unless she has been under many masters. These can seldom be procured at home; and the general habits of frugal households will not suit a girl who will probably be hired to form the manners, as well as to mould the minds, of her pupils. She is sent to one of those schools which are usually mere gymnasia for accomplishments and elegant manners. She soon gains many showy acquirements: she learns the true value of outward appearance end position. It is astonishing what a touchstone there is in a pretty face, an expensive wardrobe, or a title, at girls' schools. It will lie well if she docs not forget to blush; better still if she retains the instinctive horror of evil implanted in all young hearts. Probably she makes friends of girls who are " finishing their education" for the cay world and the matrimonial market. She lives amongst companions of her own age, which fact implies a share in a certain amount of animal spirits and enjoyment of young life. At eighteen (and we do not take the earliest age at which young women are sent into the world) she leaves these humble cares and joys, the protection of parents, and her natural sphere for a new life. How great must be her heart-sickness when she sets forth into that untried world! The auspices under which she starts differ widely from those which attend her old associates. She hears from one of her " coming out," another tells of the presentation, a third is married. A craving for pleasures, inconsistent with her calling, is added to the fear of strange duties and the sense of forlornness on leaving home. In her preparation for the world she has learned to make her own station in it abound in some hardships not necessarily pertaining to it.
One cannot conceive of a greater anomaly than that which makes a woman responsible for children, and their exemplar in all things, whose mother treats her as if she were unfit to associate with herself and her guests. Children, who only look to the outside of things, must draw the inference that their governess is a mere machine for teaching. To their eyes, she appears wholly cut off from the links in their chain of sympathies, She, witb all the ex. uberance of a youthful heart, fresh from the warmth and common interests of a family, is suddenly thrust into a post whose conscientious fulfilment requires a discretion and retinence not natural to youth. New difficulties and responsibilities meet hex every day; she is hourly tried by all those childish follies and perversities which need a mother's instinctive love to make them tolerable; yet a forbearance and spring of spirits is claimed from the stranger, in spite of the frets she endures, which He who made the heart knew that maternal affection only could supply, under the perpetual contradictions of wilful childhood. This strength of instinct has been given to every mother. It enables her to walk lightly under a load which, without it, she could not sustain. But should not women think twice, before they expect from strangers who have not even the natural affection of kindred, a mother's conduct to their children? Day by day the governess is worn by the disappointments the most promising child must inflict upon its teacher; but to whom can she, in her weariness, turn for sympathy? Not one mother in a thousand can bear to hear her child's faults spoken of by a third person, however quicksighted she is to them herself, without some resentment towards the speaker. A very young woman would probably fear to venture on such delicate Ground with the parents.
If she is indiscreet, she writes to her family about her pupils, and is taught hereafter by bitter experience the fruits of incaution; some, perhaps, go on all their lives betraying a holy trust. The lips of a conscientious teacher would be sealed, by the awe of looking in upon a child's soul and seeing all its struggles. For no relief to herself could she dare to expose to others what she has learned by a trust implicit as that placed in a confessor. She must live daily amidst the trials of a home without its blessings; she must hear about on her heart the sins she witnesses and the responsibilities that crush her; without any consent of her will, she is made the confidante of many family secrets; she must live in a familiar circle as if her eyes did not perceive the tokens of bitterness; she must appear not to hear sharp sayings and mal-à-propos speeches; kindly words of courtesy must be always on her lips; she must be ever on her guard; let her relax her self-restraint for one moment, and who shall say what mischief and misery might ensue to all from one heedless expression of hers? Wholesome discipline, no doubt! It were well, perhaps, if it were made the groundwork of all home intercourse; but who amongst the young, unaided and without counsel, is sufficient for these things? Is not caution the fruit of experience? Ay, and these young creatures, if they have high moral principles, learn enough bitter experience in a year to give them the sorrows of maturity, without its strength and safety.
The consequences to themselves? They spring up suddenly in premature developement, like plants in a hot-house, —old in heart, aged in appearance, before the bloom of youth is brushed from their years, drawn upwards by the insufferable light, from which, in their glasshouses, there is no shelter. It is do exaggeration to say that hundreds snap yearly from the stalk, or prolong a withered, sickly life, till they, too, sink, and are carried out to die miserably in the by-ways of the world.
This is but one instance of the unnatural state of isolation to which women arc exposed who prefer honest exertion to inaction and dependence. Any one who has a mind to feel and a heart to think would consider it no great hardship to instruct children, even not their own, for a given portion of the day. By great mercy the structure of a child's mind is so beautifully organised, that it awakens a tenderness and interest towards itself in the hearts who muse upon it. But when the lesson-books are closed, and the little ones have capered out of the school-room, what becomes of the teacher, who has not exchanged a thought or a word with any one of congenial mind all day? Hour after hour she has bent down her mind, and raised the children's to given points, which, however interesting, are exhausting. A young thing, perhaps, still herself, ready to spring up again at one kindly touch. Do not even fond mothers, who teach their own children, feel that after the labours of the day they need some Interchange of mind? They have often felt refreshed when husband or friend has given them a new thought, or understood an articulated feeling, after the repression of the say, necessary in fulfilling the duty of teaching. Who is there that has not known the dryness of spending time with people of more limited capacities and interests than one's own? The governess has a better lot than this, inasmuch as she may hope to expand the germs given into her fostering care; whereas the uncongenial companion can only expect less and less of bud and blossom as years roll on. Let mothers say if they would not expect their own daughters to languish in spirits and energy, if they had no intercourse with older companions. Whilst the children are with their parents and their guests, the governess, quite as often as not, is expected to remain in the school-room, unless specially invited to join the circle. This is peculiarly the case in large establishments, where the school-room arrangements are distinct from the rest of the family. We believe that most young women of delicate perceptions would prefer their desolate apartment to feeling themselves clogs upon the family party. But do people know what they arc about when they leave young creatures alone, long evening after evening, following days of seclusion and exhaustion? Factory-girls, shop-women, teachers of accomplishments, return to their homes at night. The servants gather round the work-table or the hallfire, Prisoners in gaol may collect together in knots in their yards, look in each other's faces, hear the sound of human voices, tell their troubles and joys, and listen to their neighbors, Solitary confinement, even for felons, is reserved to punish some special offence. It is only the governess, and a certain class of private tutors, who must hear the echoes from the drawing-room and the offices, feeling that, in a house full of people, they dwell alone. Nervous irritability, dejection, loss of energy, arc the invariable results which follow a too solitary life in youth. Yet, without elasticity iu her own frame, how can the governess be a fitting companion and teacher of such gay, volatile creatures as children, —so easily cowed and spirit-broken by harshness or settled sadness in those who live with them? Would not querulous temper or depression of spirits in the governess be complained of by the parents? Do they consider, when they expect cheerfulness and an even composure of spirits from one fretted with children's restless waywardness, and chilled by the frosty indifference and neglect of the grown-up members of the family, that they ask an impossible thing? There may be some phlegmatic exceptions, but, merely to judge by common parlance, governesses are usually a fretful, discontented race. Why? They are the weak, they are trampled upon; if they turn upon their oppressors they must starve. Some few have such strong hearts, and are moulded by secret influences of good to such a perfect temper, that they can endure patiently, and find peace in,
"The sot, gray life, and apathetic end."
Those who have not directed their attention with some definite end to these points, will scarcely believe the want of consideration shewn to governesses in trifles. Perhaps, too, they may think them too insignificant to be worthy cf notice. The bubble on the surface shews which way the tide sets.
At one house, when the party at bed-time were lighting their candles,...
