And this was the view of Mrs. Gamp, when she contemplated “the unconscious Chuffey”: “Drat the old creetur,” said that skilled practitioner, “he’s a layin’ down the law tolerable confident too. A deal he knows of sons or darters either.”
The taunt of inexperience is applied to others besides school inspectors. A clerical (bachelor) friend of mine found a woman in his parish feeding her three-months’ old baby on kippered herring and tea. He remonstrated, and she turned indignantly upon him:
“I should think I’d ought to know more about babies than you, seein’ as I’ve buried seven of ’em.”
Peritis credendum est in arte sua.
Now I should be loath to assert that I know anything about children. Some one in Sophocles (I think it was a Chorus in the Antigone) remarked that “of all weird things in nature Man is the weirdest.” And by reason of his unexpectedness Child is weirder than Man. But comparing my ignorance with female ignorance of Child, I do not see that I have any natural disqualification by reason of sex. And when my critic has been a maiden lady, it has been difficult to repress the obvious repartee.
I might add that so strong are the chains of custom that these critics, if they wished to crush me by an appeal to authority, would bring forward none but the names of men. In French, it has been unkindly remarked, ange is always masculine, bête always feminine: there is no belle-ange, no bête-noir: and so “Writer-on-school-method” is always masculine. This should be seen to. Lancaster, Bell, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Herbert Spencer—are there no she-prophets? If “Man marks the earth with ruin, his control” should stop short of girls’ schools.
Far be it from me to dispute the point here. It may be on account of this inability to understand girl, that I have only one anecdote in stock for my 50,000 daughters:
The Squire’s wife at Exhurst is not pleased with the manners of the girls, since that Miss A. took charge of the school. The other day Her Excellency met Mary Hodge in the lane, and did not meet with due reverence. She went on to Mrs. Hodge’s cottage, and made complaint: “I met Mary in the lane just now, and she didn’t curtsey to me, and I do think, &c., &c.”
“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. Hodge, deprecatingly, “you see curtseying’s gone hout now; but if you’d ’a sloped to our Mary, I’m sure she’d a’ sloped to you.”
Dear girls! I have no stories to tell of them; but though they did not lend themselves to humorous treatment, they were very delightful; and there was not one among the whole 50,000 who would have changed me for Tabitha Brown, or Priscilla Jones, or Minerva Robinson.