If there is a point on which Eleanor and I are quite agreed, among the many points we discuss and do not always agree upon, it is that of the need for a higher education for women. But ill as I think our sex provided for in this respect, and highly as I value good teaching, I would rather send a growing girl to a Miss Martin, even for fewer “educational advantages,” and let her start in life with a sound, healthy constitution and a reasonable set of nerves, than have her head crammed and her health neglected under “the first masters,” and so good an overseer as “Madame” to boot. For Madame certainly made us work, and was herself indefatigable.
The reckless imprudence of most girls in matters of health is proverbial, the wisdom of young matrons in this respect is not beyond reproach, and the lore which long and painful experience has given to older women is apt, like other lessons from that stern teacher, to come too late. It should at least avail to benefit their daughters, were it not that custom prescribes that they also should be kept in the dark till instructed in turn by the lamentable results of their ignorance, too often only when these are past repair.
Whether, though there are many things that women have no knowledge of, and many more of which their knowledge is superficial, their lack of learning on these points being erudition compared with their crass ignorance of the laws of health, the matter is again one of education; or whether it is an unfortunate development of a confusion between ignorance and innocence, and of mistaken notions of delicacy, who shall say? Unhappily, a studied ignorance of the ills that flesh is heir to is apt to bring them in double force about one’s ears, and this kind of delicate-mindedness to bring delicacy of body in its train. Where it guides the counsels of those in charge of numbers of young people (as in Miss Mulberry’s case), it is apt to result in the delicacy (more or less permanent) of several bodies.
But I am forgetting that I am not “preaching” to Eleanor by the kitchen fire, but writing my autobiography. I am forgetting, also, that I have not yet said who Miss Mulberry was.
CHAPTER XIV.
MISS MULBERRY—DISCIPLINE AND RECREATION—MADAME—CONVERSATION—ELEANOR’S OPINION OF THE DRAWING-MASTER—MISS ELLEN’S—ELEANOR’S APOLOGY.
Miss Mulberry was our school-mistress, and the head of the Bush House establishment. “Madame” was only a French mistress employed by Miss Mulberry, though she had more to do with the pupils than Miss Mulberry herself.
Miss Mulberry was stout, and I think by nature disposed to indolence, especially in warm weather. It was all the more creditable to her that she had worked hard for many years to support a paralytic mother and a delicate sister. The mother was dead now. Miss Ellen Mulberry, though an invalid, gave some help in teaching the younger ones; and Bush House had for so long been a highly-reputed establishment that Miss Mulberry was more or less prosperous, and could afford to keep a French governess to do the hard work.
Miss Mulberry was very conscientious, very kind-hearted, and the pink of propriety. Her appearance, at once bland and solid, produced a favourable impression upon parents and guardians. Being stout, and between fifty and sixty years old, she was often described as “motherly,” though in the timidity, fidgetiness, and primness of her dealing with girls she was essentially a spinster.