Even in the pronunciation of the French, I have found that it was not the best educated teacher, speaking with the purest Parisian accent, who was most successful, but rather a lady whose enthusiasm and perseverance and carefulness would not allow a single syllable to be mispronounced by her pupils. This explains how it is that women with less education so often prove more successful than men in managing female institutions.
By this same general principle of quickening intellect by exciting interest, I learned the importance of educating every young girl with some practical aim, by which, in case of poverty, she might support herself; and also, of selecting for this end some pursuit suited to her natural tastes and character. To study what is liked and with the hope of thus securing some agreeable and substantial advantage in future life more than doubles the interest, and thus quickens and exalts the intellectual powers.
In this view of the case, it became an important inquiry as to which of the employments and studies of our higher female seminaries could be made available in securing a remunerative profession to a
woman, and one that would be suitable for her sex. Here, again, I may be allowed to introduce some of my own experience as guiding to a conclusion, at least in one particular.
All through my childhood, my father daily read the Bible, in course, at family prayers, and when his inquisitive children asked questions as to matters of delicacy, they were told that the Bible was given by God to instruct men in all their duties, and that some things were not for children to know till they were men and women; that this inquiry was about things they could not understand, and that it was wrong to try to do so.
After such wise training, my first experience as a teacher of Latin was to a class of young girls as ignorant as myself of all the wickedness of the world; and then I was plied with questions I could not answer except by aid of a brother; when to my dismay and disgust I found the worst vices of heathenism, and those most likely to tempt young boys, made respectable and attractive by the charms of classic poetry, and forming a part of a boy's training for college.
And here I would ask why it has come to pass that the Bible, in its original Greek, is turned out of the college course of most of our leading colleges, (for it formerly was required,) while the vulgarity and vice of heathenism are preserved and made attractive in fitting boys for college? Is it not time for woman to have a more decided ministry in training young boys for their college life? Should not women be trained in Latin and Greek, so that mothers and sisters thus taught could fit young boys for college, instead of sending them at the most perilous age away from the watch and care of a home and all female influence, to boys' boarding-schools, to mix with all sorts, and there be taught all manner of evil? Teachers trained in these languages could go into families to aid a mother in these duties, and would be liberally compensated. This, then, is a profession for which a woman can be trained even in our common schools as well as in female colleges.
Another very interesting fact revealed by personal experience is, that there is no knowledge so thorough and permanent as that gained in teaching