“Specs so,” was the laconic response, and the subject dropped.
There is no getting round the fact that she was a terrible pickle. If we bear in mind what the state of girls’ education was in those days we shall see that it could scarcely have been otherwise. If she could have gone to a boys’ school and enjoyed its boisterous give and take, the little “despotic emperor” would soon have found her level. One loves to think how happy she would have been in the modern Girls’ High School: if she had but found the education of women in the condition in which she left it, the difference in her whole future would have been very great, but women of the present day would not owe her the debt they owe her now. “The breaker is gone up before them.”
As things were, she had, in a sense, got the upper hand of her parents before she went to school at all. She was simply overflowing with energy and vitality, and they found themselves, while she was little more than a child, confronted with a personality which ran right athwart their preconceived notions and theories of life. They had not the right weapons with which to meet the outbursts of her volcanic temperament, and it must always be borne in mind that “when she was good, she was very very good,” immeasurably more attractive than the average child.
The one effort of her teachers, of course, was to repress her, to induce her to be “ladylike,” and, most unfortunately of all, to make every childish act of disobedience, every outburst of passion, the text for a homily on the necessity of “coming to Jesus.” One cannot read the long series of letters referred to above without wondering how it came about that the germ of religion in the child’s heart was not worn away altogether; and indeed its survival only becomes comprehensible when one bears in mind the genuine goodness of many of those who watched over her, and also the “unknown quantity,”—that elusive unsearchable factor that is present in every human equation.
The earliest references to her education are two letters from her first governess, Miss B., to Mrs. Jex-Blake, of which the first is dated November 24th, 1848:
“Sophy is a dear child, shewing daily advancement in her studies, and often delighting me by a rectitude of principle emanating, I trust ‘from the Father of lights’. A little native wildness (and that gradually softening down) together with the want of promptitude in setting about her duties, are the chief obstacles that could be picked out from a much longer list of things most prized by an earnest teacher. I have often thought of your wish that she should learn the Latin grammar, and quite agree with your view of its probable advantage; but I am afraid of breaking down in the long and short syllables.... For the next few months it appears to me nothing will be lost by our present system, in which I find parsing to be generally a subject of interest.
I trust the time is not very distant when your little girl will successfully strive to be both a help and comfort to her parents.”
The second letter is nearly two months later:
“Your kind letter with its agreeable suggestion reached me too late for a reply by return of post. It would have given me a feeling deeper than pleasure to continue the instruction of your very promising child, but I have already engaged with one daily pupil and have a half prospect of another, in addition to which God’s high dispensation seems to allot to my keeping, as soon as He graciously gives me the means, the eldest of four children belonging to my Brother.... With our best love to Sophy, I am, dear Mrs. Blake,
Yours in the Lord,