Harriet Martineau

by Florence Fenwick Miller

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In adamantine chains and penal fire.

For the ensuing seven years her thoughts dwelt daily in the midst of the solemn scenes, and moved to the sound of the sonorous music of Milton's poetry. "I wonder how much of it I knew by heart—enough to be always repeating it to myself with every change of light and darkness, and sound, and silence, the moods of the day and the seasons of the year." The dull child, who neglected her multiplication table, did so because her mind was pre-occupied with thoughts of this grander order.

Her love of books increased, and her range of reading became wide. Milton, although the favorite, was by no means her only beloved author. She read rapidly, and, as clever children often do, voraciously. Whole pages or scenes from Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Thompson, and Milton she learned by heart, until she knew enough poetry to have fitted her for the occupation of a wandering reciter. In this way her self-education in the English classics, and in literary style, went on at the same time with her daily education by living teachers.

Harriet's formal education was somewhat desultory; but it is a noteworthy fact that it was, so far as it went, what would have been called a "boy's education." In this respect the history of her mental development is the same as that of many other illustrious women of the past. Girls' High Schools, and University examinations for young women, are products of the present day, and are rapidly rendering obsolete the old ideas about the necessary differences and distinctions between the education of boys and girls. But up to the first quarter of this century, the minds of boys and of girls were commonly submitted to entirely different courses of training. While the boys learned precision in reasoning from mathematics, the girls were considered sufficiently equipped for their lot in life by a knowledge of the first three rules of arithmetic. While any faculty of language that a lad possessed was trained and exercised by the study of the classics, his sister was thought to require no more teaching in composition and grammar than would enable her to write a letter. Elaborate samplers, specimens of fine stitching, of hemming done by a thread on the most delicate cambric, of marking in tiny stitches and wonderful designs, and of lace more noticeable for difficulty in the doing than for beauty, have come down to us from our grandmothers' days, to show us how the school-time of the girls was being disposed of, while the boys were studying Euclid, Virgil, and Homer. If we have changed all that, and are now beginning to give a considerable proportion of our girls the same mental diet for the growth and sustenance of their minds with that which is supplied to boys, it is largely owing to the direct efforts in favor of such a course put forth by women such as Harriet Martineau, who had themselves been, at least partially, educated "like boys," and were conscious that to such education they owed much of their mental superiority over average women.

In her earlier years Harriet was taught at home by her elder brothers and sisters, with the addition of lessons in some subjects from masters. She was well grounded in this manner in Latin, French and the ordinary elementary subjects. But her systematic education did not begin until she was eleven, when she and her sister Rachel were sent to a school kept by a good master, at which boys also were receiving their education.

The school-life was delectable to Harriet. Mr. Perry, the master, was gentle in his manner, and methodical in his style of teaching; and under his tuition the shy, nervous child felt for the first time encouraged to do her best, and aided not merely to learn her lessons, but also to expand her mental faculties. The two years that she remained at Mr. Perry's school gave her a fair insight into Latin and French, and enabled her to discover that arithmetic was to her mind a delightful pastime rather than a difficult study. English composition was formally and carefully taught. This was Harriet's favorite lesson; but she would spend her playtime in covering a slate with sums for the mere pleasure of the exercise.

When Harriet had been at this school for about two years, Mr. Perry left Norwich. The home system of education was then resumed. She had visiting masters in Latin, French, and music. For the rest, Mrs. Martineau selected a course of reading on history, biography, and literature. One of the girls read aloud daily while the others did needle-work.

"The amount of time we spent in sewing now appears frightful; but it was the way in those days among people like ourselves." Harriet became a thoroughly accomplished needle-woman. She had, indeed, a liking for the occupation, and continued to do much of it all through her life. Many of her friends can show handsome pieces of fancy-work done by her hands. Again and again she contributed to public objects by sending a piece of her own beautiful needle-work to be sold for the benefit of a society's funds. Not even in the busiest time of her literary life did she ever entirely cease to exercise her skill in this feminine occupation. In fact, she made wool-work her artistic recreation.

But with all her liking for needle-work, and with all the use that she made of her skill in the art, she did feel very keenly how much her time and strength had been wasted in childhood upon the practice of this mechanical occupation that should have been employed in the cultivation of her mental powers. A girl then was required to become a proficient in the making of every kind of garment. It was considered a good test of her capacity to know at an early age how to cut out and put together a shirt for her father; drawing threads to cut it by, and drawing threads to do the rows of fine stitching by, and stitching evenly and regularly, only two threads of the finest material being taken for each stitch! The expenditure of time out of a girl's life, involved in making her capable of doing all this, was something shocking. In these days, when the development of the means of communication has made division of labor more generally practicable than of old, and when nearly all men and women, from the richest to the artizan classes, wear garments made chiefly by machinery, I doubt if many readers can be got to realize how much a girl's intellectual training was diminished when Harriet Martineau was a child by the vast amount of time consumed in training her as a seamstress. Harriet was taught how to make all her own clothes, even to covering shoes with silk for dancing, and to plaiting straw bonnets. It is as though every boy were taught in his school-life to be a thorough carpenter, so as to be able, in youth, to turn out, unaided, any article of furniture. It is obvious how much time such technical training must swallow up. To conceive how a girl was held back by it, we must ask ourselves: What was her brother doing while she was learning needle-work?