MRS. GLADSTONE’S EARLY TRAINING.
It was a serious problem at the outset to obtain either teachers or scholars. It was necessary to employ bribery to get the mothers to send their children to school, and the aid of Lady Glynne and her young girls was brought to bear, in the first place, to talk the mothers over; and, secondly, to prepare a store of frocks, coats, cloaks, and other useful garments. These were given away as Christmas prizes, to recompense the mothers for remitting the services of their little girls, and the pence which the boys could pick up at scaring crows and such like juvenile occupations.
It was a matter of still greater difficulty to find teachers who knew anything of the art of instruction; this was long before the day of colleges for elementary teachers. An old woman at Hawarden boasted to me that she had received for many years a Christmas prize for regular attendance at school. Naturally the question was asked: “How was it, then, Mrs. Catheral, you never learned either to read or write?”
“Oh, I never wanted to,” said she. “I never tried. But I liked the pretty frock or warm cloak the Miss Glynnes always gave us for prizes at Christmas time, if we went to school regular.” Then she added, “Bless you! you should have seen the prizes in those days! They were worth looking at; none of your books and rubbish, like what children get in these days.” In such an atmosphere did the children of Lady Glynne grow up, systematically trained to assist their mother and uncle in everything they projected for the parish good. Then came the full tide of the Oxford movement, which swept like a wave of light and heat through the sluggish heart of English religious and social reform, though it landed some of its brightest lights afterwards in Romanism. The names of Pusey, Keble, Manning, and Newman were household words at Hawarden Castle. Catherine’s brothers were then at Christ Church, Oxford; and, in the midst of it all, intimate with the leaders of the movement, amongst whom were young Gladstone and many other brilliant young men, destined to be friends through life of those two bright and beautiful young girls at Hawarden.
THE OLD AND NEW CASTLE OF HAWARDEN.
Thus a happy childhood matured into womanhood, under revolutionary influences. The breezes of intellectual and spiritual awakening stirred the air. Theirs never was a life of mere social excitement which so often plunges the débutante into a whirl of pleasure without feeding the better life. They entered, it is true, into all the pleasures of London seasons, their beauty and bright minds fitting them to enjoy these to the full. But behind and above it all was the intelligence which kept them in touch with the movement of their day—a movement which, when turned into practical channels, brought about, for example, the great work of Florence Nightingale, who re-created the hospital-nursing service. The same potency inspired the establishment of 237 homes and refuges and many of the philanthropic schemes which have made the last forty years so notable. Certain it is that Catherine Glynne came under the influence of the Oxford movement, and was predisposed by it to take a leading part in the philanthropic work of the day.