[CHRISTMAS IN A GIRLS' SCHOOL A CENTURY AGO.]
BY E. IRENÆUS STEVENSON.
A good many of the grandmothers and the mothers of readers of Harper's Round Table were school-girls at a certain very old school in Pennsylvania still flourishing to-day—the Bethlehem Female Seminary. It was begun far back, in 1785, under the charge of the wise and kind Moravian Church people, who came to our country nearly two hundred years ago. The girls who were taught in this quiet seminary did not, let us say eighty years back from to-day, learn many things that nowadays are part of a girl's course of study. But they were also instructed in some matters always well to know, such as good manners and gentle behavior, love of their country and high principles of womanhood, and their life seems to have been a happy, helpful, and busy one.
A great deal was made in this school of birthdays and holidays. Particularly was Christmas a notable event, celebrated by teachers and pupils; for there was not much home going when December came. For weeks they prepared the feast. The woods were ransacked by special committees of girls, big and little, aided by some white-capped "Sister" Hübener or "Sister" Benade. Every room and hall was gradually turned into a bower of green for the fortnight. The spinning that was left over from the year's "stint" was hurried to its end, the pupils being allowed regular "spinning-days," when, in place of books, they sat in rows, with their wheels whirring away all the morning and afternoon, often a school feast of "chocolate and pancakes" winding up the evening. Next, the "Sisters" of the community and the older girls began to arrange an elaborate scene of the birth of Christ as described in the Gospels, much as in many Roman Catholic churches it is done to-day. The Virgin and the Child Jesus, Joseph and the three Wise Men, the Shepherds, the rude stable—all were imitated by dressed and good-sized figures, with care, and as tastefully as possible. But no girl was allowed a peep at this (unless she were helping in preparing it) until Christmas eve. It can be imagined that curiosity ran in a strong current, among the smaller scholars especially.
Besides this, a little Christmas play, or rather a dialogue, was often written expressly for performance more or less in public (to invited guests, as well as the scholars and teachers), rehearsed and polished to the utmost, in honor of Christmas. Some of these, many of them written by a certain clever "Sister" Langard, or by poetical "Sister" Kleist, are quaint and amusing reading nowadays—not at all like the sort of "private theatricals" that young ladies' boarding-schools relish in our time, but they had a beauty of their own not yet vanished. In the great school—for it frequently had several scores of pupils—the idea of home life was kept strongly in view, and part of the process was the dividing of the pupils into groups called "home companies," which entertained each other, assisted each other, and at Christmas-time stole away to concoct gifts for each other, to be delivered on Christmas day in the school-room or hall.
The afternoon before Christmas brought the expected surprises and pleasures. The patrons of the school, clergy-men, lawyers, and doctors, and all the honored folk of Bethlehem town, in their best wigs and finest petticoats, came from far and wide. During the Revolutionary war, in 1777, it is recorded that "physicians and surgeons and convalescent officers" were among the company. The Christmas play was played; and very charming must some of the young speakers in it have been, as they gravely spoke its sober lines, some of them pretty long ones. The concert was not less formal nor less enjoyed, and "the newest music by Herr Mozart or Mr. Cherubini" was played and sung. In the evening came a meeting in the chapel, at the close of which each girl "under twelve years of age" was given a burning taper to hold while a Christmas Hymn was sung. By this time, too, the great mystery of the decorated room was opened, and all the scholars were invited to admire its wonders. The morning of Christmas brought the signal for present-making and a general holiday, on which occasion the ancient school buildings were full of quiet happiness.
Many famous men in the war and peace of that time were glad to be honored by invitations to "the Moravian Christmas at Bethlehem." General Washington, General Lafayette, General Greene (whose daughters were educated in the school), General Schuyler, Colonel Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, and scores of other Revolutionary names were always on its invitation list and more or less regularly expected to be present. And it is pleasant to think that to-day Christmas comes to the same stanch old school—not to be celebrated in the same way, but not less honored within its walls.