Among the poems which Maria learned in her childhood, and which was repeatedly upon her lips all through her life, was, "The spacious firmament on high." In her latter years if she had a sudden fright which threatened to take away her senses she would test her mental condition by repeating that poem; it is needless to say that she always remembered it, and her nerves instantly relapsed into their natural condition.
The lives of Maria Mitchell and her numerous brothers and sisters were passed in simplicity and with an entire absence of anything exciting or abnormal.
The education of their children is enjoined upon the parents by the "Discipline," and in those days at least the parents did not give up all the responsibility in that line to the teachers. In Maria Mitchell's childhood the children of a family sat around the table in the evenings and studied their lessons for the next day,—the parents or the older children assisting the younger if the lessons were too difficult. The children attended school five days in the week,—six hours in the day,—and their only vacation was four weeks in the summer, generally in August.
The idea that children over-studied and injured their health was never promulgated in that family, nor indeed in that community; it seems to be a notion of the present half-century.
Maria's first teacher was a lady for whom she always felt the warmest affection, and in her diary, written in her later years, occurs this allusion to her:
"I count in my life, outside of family relatives, three aids given me on my journey; they are prominent to me: the woman who first made the study-book charming; the man who sent me the first hundred dollars I ever saw, to buy books with; and another noble woman, through whose efforts I became the owner of a telescope; and of these, the first was the greatest."
As a little girl, Maria was not a brilliant scholar; she was shy and slow; but later, under her father's tuition, she developed very rapidly.
After the close of the war of 1812, when business was resumed and the town restored to its normal prosperity, Mr. Mitchell taught school,—at first as master of a public school, and afterwards in a private school of his own. Maria attended both of these schools.
Mr. Mitchell's pupils speak of him as a most inspiring teacher, and he always spoke of his experiences in that capacity as very happy.
When her father gave up teaching, Maria was put under the instruction of Mr. Cyrus Peirce, afterwards principal of the first normal school started in the United States.