It was thus that natural history was taught in the year 1767.
The publication in 1798 of Mr. Edgeworth’s “Practical Education” (Miss Edgeworth was responsible for some of the chapters) gave a profound impetus to child-study. Little boys and girls were dragged from the obscure haven of the nursery, from their hornbooks, and the casual slappings of nursery-maids, to be taught and tested in the light of day. The process appears to have been deeply engrossing. Irregular instruction, object lessons, and experimental play afforded scant respite to parent or to child. “Square and circular bits of wood, balls, cubes, and triangles” were Mr. Edgeworth’s first substitutes for toys; to be followed by “card, pasteboard, substantial but not sharp-pointed scissors, wire, gum, and wax.” It took an active mother to superintend this home kindergarten, to see that the baby did not poke the triangle into its eye, and to relieve Tommy at intervals from his coating of gum and wax. When we read further that “children are very fond of attempting experiments in dyeing, and are very curious about vegetable dyes,” we gain a fearful insight into parental pleasures and responsibilities a hundred years ago.
Text-book knowledge was frowned upon by the Edgeworths. We know how the “good French governess” laughs at her clever pupil who has studied the “Tablet of Memory,” and who can say when potatoes were first brought into England, and when hair powder was first used, and when the first white paper was made. The new theory of education banished the “Tablet of Memory,” and made it incumbent upon parent or teacher to impart in conversation such facts concerning potatoes, powder, and paper as she desired her pupils to know. If books were used, they were of the deceptive order, which purposed to be friendly and entertaining. A London bookseller actually proposed to Godwin “a delightful work for children,” which was to be called “A Tour through Papa’s House.” The object of this precious volume was to explain casually how and where Papa’s furniture was made, his carpets were woven, his curtains dyed, his kitchen pots and pans called into existence. Even Godwin, who was not a bubbling fountain of humour, saw the absurdity of such a book; and recommended in its place “Robinson Crusoe,” “if weeded of its Methodism” (alas! poor Robinson!), “The Seven Champions of Christendom,” and “The Arabian Nights.”
The one great obstacle in the educator’s path (it has not yet been wholly levelled) was the proper apportioning of knowledge between boys and girls. It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition; but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother. In 1774 a few rash innovators conceived the project of an advanced school for girls; one that should approach from afar a college standard, and teach with thoroughness what it taught at all; one that might be trusted to broaden the intelligence of women, without lessening their much-prized femininity. It was even proposed that Mrs. Barbauld, who was esteemed a very learned lady, should take charge of such an establishment; but the plan met with no approbation at her hands. In the first place she held that fifteen was not an age for school-life and study, because then “the empire of the passions is coming on”; and in the second place there was nothing she so strongly discountenanced as thoroughness in a girl’s education. On this point she had no doubts, and no reserves. “Young ladies,” she wrote, “ought to have only such a general tincture of knowledge as to make them agreeable companions to a man of sense, and to enable them to find rational entertainment for a solitary hour. They should gain these accomplishments in a quiet and unobserved manner. The thefts of knowledge in our sex are connived at, only while carefully concealed; and, if displayed, are punished with disgrace. The best way for women to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father, a brother, or a friend; and by such a course of reading as they may recommend.”
There was no danger that an education conducted on these lines would result in an undue development of intelligence, would lift the young lady above “her own mild and chastened sphere.” In justice to Mrs. Barbauld we must admit that she but echoed the sentiments of her day. “Girls,” said Miss Hannah More, “should be led to distrust their own judgments.” They should be taught to give up their opinions, and to avoid disputes, “even if they know they are right.” The one fact impressed upon the female child was her secondary place in the scheme of creation; the one virtue she was taught to affect was delicacy; the one vice permitted to her weakness was dissimulation. Even her play was not like her brother’s play,—a reckless abandonment to high spirits; it was play within the conscious limits of propriety. In one of Mrs. Trimmer’s books, a model mother hesitates to allow her eleven-year-old daughter to climb three rounds of a ladder, and look into a robin’s nest, four feet from the ground. It was not a genteel thing for a little girl to do. Even her schoolbooks were not like her brother’s schoolbooks. They were carefully adapted to her limitations. Mr. Thomas Gisborne, who wrote a much-admired work entitled “An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex,” was of the opinion that geography might be taught to girls without reserve; but that they should learn only “select parts” of natural history, and, in the way of science, only a few “popular and amusing facts.” A “Young Lady’s Guide to Astronomy” was something vastly different from the comprehensive system imparted to her brother.
In a very able and subtle little book called “A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters,” by Dr. John Gregory of Edinburgh,—
He whom each virtue fired, each grace refined,
Friend, teacher, pattern, darling of mankind![1]
—we find much earnest counsel on this subject. Dr. Gregory was an affectionate parent. He grudged his daughters no material and no intellectual advantage; but he was well aware that by too great liberality he imperilled their worldly prospects. Therefore, although he desired them to be well read and well informed, he bade them never to betray their knowledge to the world. Therefore, although he desired them to be strong and vigorous,—to walk, to ride, to live much in the open air,—he bade them never to make a boast of their endurance. Rude health, no less than scholarship, was the exclusive prerogative of men. His deliberate purpose was to make them rational creatures, taking clear and temperate views of life; but he warned them all the more earnestly against the dangerous indulgence of seeming wiser than their neighbours. “Be even cautious in displaying your good sense,” writes this astute and anxious father. “It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest of your company. But if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from men, who are apt to look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts and cultivated understanding.”
This is plain speaking. And it must be remembered that “learning” was not in 1774, nor for many years afterwards, the comprehensive word it is to-day. A young lady who could translate a page of Cicero was held to be learned to the point of pedantry. What reader of “Cœlebs”—if “Cœlebs” still boasts a reader—can forget that agitating moment when, through the inadvertence of a child, it is revealed to the breakfast table that Lucilla Stanley studies Latin every morning with her father. Overpowered by the intelligence, Cœlebs casts “a timid eye” upon his mistress, who is covered with confusion. She puts the sugar into the cream jug, and the tea into the sugar basin; and finally, unable to bear the mingled awe and admiration awakened by this disclosure of her scholarship, she slips out of the room, followed by her younger sister, and commiserated by her father, who knows what a shock her native delicacy has received. Had the fair Lucilla admitted herself to be an expert tight-rope dancer, she could hardly have created more consternation.