WOMAN’S WORK FOR WOMAN.
MISS MARY E. SAWYER.
A Paper read at the Women’s Meeting, held in connection with the Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association at Norwich, Ct.
Before every Southern teacher to whom comes the opportunity of presenting this cause, so dear to us, to the Christian women of the North, two pictures rise.
Looking upon the one, you would shrink back in dismay, wondering if it be not hopeless to try and illumine a darkness so gloomy, to raise a class so utterly buried in ignorance, superstition and sin. But, could we turn to you the other view, show the work done, acquaint you with the trials, the sacrifices, the glorious victories over fiery temptations, the patient continuance in well-doing in the face of obstacles almost insurmountable, then, indeed, you might be tempted to take the other extreme and feel that missionaries are hardly needed among a people whose Christian record shines brighter than our own. So, coming as pledged witnesses before you to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we shrink from the vastness of the undertaking, for while exactly fulfilling the last requirement and telling nothing but the truth, we keenly realize the many contradictions, and know that the whole truth cannot be told in a single hour—can never, indeed, be fully known till seen in the light of eternity.
We read of nations with no word for home. Come through the cabins of the South and you will find not the name but the reality wanting. You will not find there any incentive or help to personal modesty, any retirement or any sense of impropriety in the state of things. From these influences and homes many of our girls come to us with minds and characters such as might be expected from such surroundings. We sometimes speak of them as children, but the comparison is hardly just. Never do I realize more keenly their deprivations than after talking with Northern children—little children whose precocity, to one fresh from the South, seems almost alarming, suggestive of brain fevers and early death. From babyhood their wits have been quickened by contact with other and mature minds, their many questions wisely answered till they have absorbed knowledge enough to be intelligent companions before their so-called education begins. But put them in the place of the colored children, remove all books, all papers, all pictures, let them have no knowledge of the outside world, let all their questions be addressed to people as ignorant as themselves, and you will find the youth of sixteen far behind the child of six.
To many of the girls, entering school is like entering a new world. They sit for the first time in their lives at a well ordered table, utterly at a loss as to the proper manner of conducting themselves. The refined manners of the older students bewilder them.
The door of a teacher’s room is suddenly and unceremoniously thrown open, and two or three girls march silently before her to the fire, and standing with vacant faces by its warmth, are perfectly unconscious of any impropriety in such a mode of entrance, or of the need of a single word of explanation. It is no uncommon thing for a girl to throw herself, fully dressed, on the outside of her freshly-made bed and there pass the night, having no conception of properly undressing and going to bed.
Our school work, then, includes much more than one would at first imagine. Each girl has some part in the household work, and must be taught the neatest, quickest and best method of doing it. This does not mean once showing, but careful, patient oversight for days and weeks. Her room, clean and tidy, when given her, must be kept in the same condition, and this necessitates very frequent and very thorough inspection, till she at length comprehends fully that a hasty use of the broom, leaving the sweepings under the bed or behind the door, a scrambling up of all loose articles into one pile on the closet floor, or a set of drawers with finger marks outside and a motley collection of clean and dirty clothing within, will not satisfy the requirement.
The same care is exercised over her person; clean, whole clothing, well-kept hair and thorough bathing transform her outwardly, while the loud, boisterous tones, the coarse expressions, the uncouth manners are toned and softened by constant care.