L. E. L.
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.
But the family of the pioneer consisted of girls as well as boys; and though the former were never so carefully educated as the latter, they were seldom allowed to go wholly untaught.
The more modern system, which separates the sexes while infants, and never suffers them to come together again until they are “marriageable,” was not then introduced; and we think it would have been no great misfortune to the country had it remained in Spain, whence it would seem to have been imported. Children of both sexes were intended to grow up together—to be educated in company—at least until they have reached the points where their paths naturally diverge, for thus only can they be most useful to each other, in the duties, trials, and struggles, of after life. The artificial refinement which teaches a little girl that a boy is something to be dreaded—a sort of beast of prey—before she recognises any difference, save in dress, can never benefit her at best; for by-and-by she will discover the falsehood: the very instincts of her nature would unveil it, did she learn it in no other way: and as action and reaction are equal, the rebound may cause her to entertain opinions altogether too favorable to those whom she has so foolishly been taught to fear.
Nor is the effect of such a system likely to be any better upon the other sex: for it is association with females (as early as possible, too, all the better), which softens, humanizes, graces, and adorns the masculine character. The boy who has been denied such association—the incidents to whose education have made him shy, as so many are, even of little girls—is apt to grow up morose and selfish, ill-tempered, and worse mannered. When the impulses of his developing nature finally force him into female society, he goes unprepared, and comes away without profit: his ease degenerates into familiarity, his conversation is, at best, but washy sentimentalism, and the association, until the accumulated rust of youth is worn away, is of very doubtful benefit to both parties. Indeed, parents who thus govern and educate their children, can find no justification for the practice, until they can first so alter the course of Nature, as to establish the law, that each family shall be composed altogether of girls, or shall consist exclusively of boys!
But these modern refinements had not obtained currency, at the period of which we are writing; nor was any such nonsense the motive to the introduction of female teachers. But one of the lessons learned by observation of the domestic circle, and particularly of the influence of the mother over her children, was the principle, that a woman can teach males of a certain age quite as well as a man, and females much better; and that, since the school-teacher stands, for the time in the place of the parent, a mistress was far more desirable, especially for the girls, than a master. Hence, the latter had exercised his vocation in the west, but a few years, before he was followed by the former.
New England was the great nursery of this class, as it was of so many others, transplanted beyond the Alleghenies. Emigration, and the enticements and casualties of a seafaring life—drawing the men into their appropriate channels of enterprise and adventure, had there reduced their number below that of the women—thus remitting many of the latter, to other than the usual and natural occupations of “the sex.” Matrimony became a remote possibility to large numbers—attention to household matters gave place to various kinds of light labor—and, since they were not likely to have progeny of their own to rear, many resorted to the teaching of children belonging to others. Idleness was a rare vice; and New England girls—to their honor be it spoken—have seldom resembled “the lilies of the field,” in aught, save the fairness of their complexions! They have never displayed much squeamishness—about work: and if they could not benefit the rising generation in a maternal, were willing to make themselves useful in a tutorial capacity. The people of that enlightened section, have always possessed the learning necessary to appreciate, and the philanthropy implied in the wish to dispel, the benighted ignorance of all other quarters of the world; and thus a competent number of them have ever been found willing to give up the comforts of home, for the benefit of the “barbarous west.”
The schoolmistress, then, generally came from the “cradle” of intelligence, as well as “of liberty,” beyond the Hudson; and, in the true spirit of benevolence, she carried her blessings (herself the greatest) across the mountain barrier, to bestow them, gratis, upon the spiritually and materially needy, in the valley of the Mississippi. Her vocation, or, as it would now be called, her “mission” was to teach an impulse not only given by her education, but belonging to her nature. She had a constitutional tendency toward it—indeed, a genius for it; like that which impels one to painting, another to sculpture—this to a learned profession, that to a mechanical trade. And so perfectly was she adapted to it, that “the ignorant people of the west” not recognising her “divine appointment,” were often at a loss to conjecture, who, or whether anybody, could have taught her!
For that same “ignorant,” and too often, ungrateful people, she was full of tender pity—the yearning of the single-hearted missionary, for the welfare of his flock. They were steeped in darkness, but she carried the light—nay, she was the light! and with a benignity, often evinced by self-sacrifice—she poured it graciously over the land—