“There is not the least chance,” Tacita said decidedly, and wondered why she should feel so angry and pained.
CHAPTER XII.
The next day they went to visit the girls’ school.
The Arcade was built around and above a promontory of rock, the stories following it in receding terraces, and the wings following backward at either side, so that the effect from a little distance was that of an irregular pyramid with a truncated top.
There was a narrow vale and a green slope behind one side, where the children played on that first evening of Tacita’s in San Salvador; and here they had their gardens cultivated by themselves, their out-door studies and recitation-rooms and play-ground. Thick walls, sewing-rooms, quiet study-rooms, and rooms where the little ones had their midday nap interposed to keep every sound of this army of girls from that part of the building used as a hotel, or home, for single ladies.
Going from her quiet apartment to that full and busy hive was to Tacita like going into another world. In its crowd and bustle and variety it was more like the outside world than anything that she had yet seen.
In one room two or three children were lying in hammocks asleep. Out on the green a group of them seated on a carpet were picking painted letter-blocks out of a heap, and discussing their names. A girl a few years older, sitting near them with her sewing, corrected their mistakes. One lovely girl had a little one on her knee who was reading a pictured story-book aloud. A larger girl sat apart writing a composition, dragging out her thoughts with contortions, like a Pythoness on her tripod. In some rooms were young ladies engaged in study, writing, or recitation. There was a printing-room, with type-setters and proofreaders, where one of the girls gave Tacita a little book of their printing and binding.
Everywhere were texts and proverbs on the walls and doors, white letters on a blue ground; and there was a throne-room where the little gilded chair was filled with flowers for the children’s infant king. Underneath was a picture of the three Magi kneeling to the Child Jesus. This was in a little temple on the hillside with a laburnum-tree bending over it full of golden flower-tassels.
“When they have acquired the rudiments of learning,” Iona said, “we give them a touch all round, almost as if without meaning it, to find the keynote of their powers. It is done chiefly by lectures. Ladies and gentlemen who have read much, or traveled much, write short essays which they read in school. If no child shows a special interest in the subject, we let it go. Our object is to give talent an opportunity, and also to waste no time and effort where they will meet with no return.
“All the accounts of the town are kept in the schools, and well kept. It saves a great deal of work. The kitchen accounts, for instance, are immense and complicated; yet they are gleefully and painstakingly smoothed into order by those busy young brains and fingers. Promotion from one class of these accounts to another is taken great pride in. For instance, the girl who is ‘in the salt,’ as they say, looks with admiring envy on the girl who is in the wheat, the fruit, or the meat. They are also taught to cook a few simple dishes. For that they go to the kitchens. They all dress alike, as you see, and there is no difference made in any way. Even the genius, if we find one, is not taught to set her gift above that of the most homely usefulness.”