Part 24

The schoolmaster was inquisitive, also, and to that western men most decidedly object. They have little curiosity themselves, and seldom ask impertinent questions. When they do so, it is almost always for the purpose of insulting the man to whom they are put, and never to make themselves agreeable. The habit of asking numerous questions was, therefore, apt to prejudice them against men whose characteristics might be, in other respects, very estimable; and it must be acknowledged, that vulgar and obtrusive impertinence is an unfortunate accompaniment to an introduction. But the schoolmaster never meant to be impertinent, for he was far from being quarrelsome (except with his scholars), and the idea that any one could be otherwise than pleased with his notice, however given, never entered his mind. Though his questions were, for the most part, asked to gratify a constitutional curiosity, he was actuated in some degree, also, by the notion that his condescension would be acceptably interpreted by those whom he thus favored. But, like many other benevolent men, who put force upon their inclinations for the benefit of their neighbors, he was mistaken in his "calculation;" and where he considered himself a benefactor, he was by others pronounced a "bore." The fact is, he had some versatility, and, like most men of various powers, he was prone to think himself a much greater man than he really was.

He was not peculiarly fitted to shine as a gallant "in hall or bower," but had he been the climax of knightly qualities, the very impersonation of beauty, grace, and accomplishment, he could not have been better adapted than, in his own estimation, he already was, to please the fancy of a lady. He was blissfully unconscious of every imperfection; and displayed himself before what he thought the admiring gaze of all dames and demoiselles, as proudly as if he had been the all-accomplished victor in some passage of arms. Yet he carried himself, in outward appearance, as meekly as the humblest Christian, and took credit to himself accordingly. He seldom pressed his advantages to the utter subjugation of the sighing dames, but deported himself with commendable forbearance toward the weak and defenceless whom his perfections had disarmed. He was as merciful as he was irresistible: as considerate as he was beautiful.

"What a saint of a knight is the knight of Saint John!"

The personal advantages which he believed made him so dangerous to the peace of woman, were counteracted, thus, by his saintly piety. For--as it became him to be, both in the character of a man, and in that of a descendant of the puritans--he was always habited in "the livery of heaven." Some ill-natured and suspicious people, it is true, were inclined to call his exemplary "walk" hypocritical, and to stigmatise his pious "conversation" as cant. But the ungodly world has always persecuted the righteous, and the schoolmaster was correct in attributing their sneers to the rebuke which his example gave to their wickedness, and to make "capital" out of the "persecution." And who shall blame him--when in the weary intervals of a laborious and thankless profession, fatigue repressed enthusiasm--if he sometimes eked out the want of inspiration by a godly snuffle? True piety reduces even the weapons of the scorner to the service of religion, and the citadel of the Gloomy Kingdom is bombarded with the artillery of Satan! Thus, the nose, which is so serviceable in the production of the devilish and unchristian sneer, is elevated by a saintlike zeal, to the expression of a devout whine: and this I believe to be the only satisfactory explanation which has ever been given, of the connection, in so many good men, between the nasal and the religious!

But the schoolmaster usually possessed genuine religious feeling, as well as a pious manner; and, excepting an occasional display of hereditary, and almost unconscious, cunning, he lived "a righteous and upright life."

The process of becoming a respectable and respected citizen was a very short and simple one--and whether the schoolmaster designed to remain only a lord of the ferrule, or casting the insignia of his office behind him, to seek higher things, he was never slow in adopting it. Among his scholars, there were generally half-a-dozen or more young women--marriageable daughters of substantial men; and from this number he selected, courted, and espoused, some healthy, buxom girl, the heiress of a considerable plantation or a quantity of "wild land." He always sought these two requisites combined--for he was equally fond of a fine person and handsome estate. Upon the land, he generally managed to find an eligible town-site; and, being a perfect master of the art of building cities on paper, and puffing them into celebrity, his sales of town-lots usually brought him a competent fortune. As years rolled on, his substance increased with the improvement of the country--the rougher points of his character were gradually rubbed down--age and gray hairs thickened upon his brow--honors, troops of friends, and numerous children, gathered round him--and the close of his career found him respected in life and lamented in death. His memory is a monument of what honesty and industry, even without worldly advantages, may always accomplish.

But the genuine character took it up as a permanent employment--he looked to it not only as a means of temporary subsistence, but as a source, by some of the direct or indirect channels which we have indicated, of lasting income--and he never threw it up until he had already secured that to which the other class, when they abandoned the occupation, were still looking forward. In the warfare against Ignorance, therefore, these, whom we have described, were the regular army, while the exceptions were but volunteers for a limited period, and, in the muster-roll of permanent strength, they are, therefore, not included.]

IX.

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS

"And yet I love thee not--thy brow Is but the sculptor's mould: It wants a shade, it wants a glow-- It is less fair than cold."

L. E. L.

But the family of the pioneer consisted of girls as well as boys; and though the former were never so carefully educated as the latter, they were seldom allowed to go wholly untaught.

The more modern system, which separates the sexes while infants, and never suffers them to come together again until they are "marriageable," was not then introduced; and we think it would have been no great misfortune to the country had it remained in Spain, whence it would seem to have been imported. Children of both sexes were intended to grow up together--to be educated in company--at least until they have reached the points where their paths naturally diverge, for thus only can they be most useful to each other, in the duties, trials, and struggles, of after life. The artificial refinement which teaches a little girl that a boy is something to be dreaded--a sort of beast of prey--before she recognises any difference, save in dress, can never benefit her at best; for by-and-by she will discover the falsehood: the very instincts of her nature would unveil it, did she learn it in no other way: and as action and reaction are equal, the rebound may cause her to entertain opinions altogether too favorable to those whom she has so foolishly been taught to fear.

Nor is the effect of such a system likely to be any better upon the other sex: for it is association with females (as early as possible, too, all the better), which softens, humanizes, graces, and adorns the masculine character. The boy who has been denied such association--the incidents to whose education have made him shy, as so many are, even of little girls--is apt to grow up morose and selfish, ill-tempered, and worse mannered. When the impulses of his developing nature finally force him into female society, he goes unprepared, and comes away without profit: his ease degenerates into familiarity, his conversation is, at best, but washy sentimentalism, and the association, until the accumulated rust of youth is worn away, is of very doubtful benefit to both parties. Indeed, parents who thus govern and educate their children, can find no justification for the practice, until they can first so alter the course of Nature, as to establish the law, that each family shall be composed altogether of girls, or shall consist exclusively of boys!

But these modern refinements had not obtained currency, at the period of which we are writing; nor was any such nonsense the motive to the introduction of female teachers. But one of the lessons learned by observation of the domestic circle, and particularly of the influence of the mother over her children, was the principle, that a woman can teach males of a certain age quite as well as a man, and females much better; and that, since the school-teacher stands, for the time in the place of the parent, a mistress was far more desirable, especially for the girls, than a master. Hence, the latter had exercised his vocation in the west, but a few years, before he was followed by the former.

New England was the great nursery of this class, as it was of so many others, transplanted beyond the Alleghenies. Emigration, and the enticements and casualties of a seafaring life--drawing the men into their appropriate channels of enterprise and adventure, had there reduced their number below that of the women--thus remitting many of the latter, to other than the usual and natural occupations of "the sex." Matrimony became a remote possibility to large numbers--attention to household matters gave place to various kinds of light labor--and, since they were not likely to have progeny of their own to rear, many resorted to the teaching of children belonging to others. Idleness was a rare vice; and New England girls--to their honor be it spoken--have seldom resembled "the lilies of the field," in aught, save the fairness of their complexions! They have never displayed much squeamishness--about work: and if they could not benefit the rising generation in a maternal, were willing to make themselves useful in a tutorial capacity. The people of that enlightened section, have always possessed the learning necessary to appreciate, and the philanthropy implied in the wish to dispel, the benighted ignorance of all other quarters of the world; and thus a competent number of them have ever been found willing to give up the comforts of home, for the benefit of the "barbarous west."

The schoolmistress, then, generally came from the "cradle" of intelligence, as well as "of liberty," beyond the Hudson; and, in the true spirit of benevolence, she carried her blessings (herself the greatest) across the mountain barrier, to bestow them, gratis, upon the spiritually and materially needy, in the valley of the Mississippi. Her vocation, or, as it would now be called, her "mission" was to teach an impulse not only given by her education, but belonging to her nature. She had a constitutional tendency toward it--indeed, a genius for it; like that which impels one to painting, another to sculpture--this to a learned profession, that to a mechanical trade. And so perfectly was she adapted to it, that "the ignorant people of the west" not recognising her "divine appointment," were often at a loss to conjecture, who, or whether anybody, could have taught her!

For that same "ignorant," and too often, ungrateful people, she was full of tender pity--the yearning of the single-hearted missionary, for the welfare of his flock. They were steeped in darkness, but she carried the light--nay, she was the light! and with a benignity, often evinced by self-sacrifice--she poured it graciously over the land--

"Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do: Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not."

For the good of the race, or of any (male) individual, she would immolate herself, even upon the altar of Hymen; and, since the number, who were to be benefited by such self-devotement, was small in New England, but large in the west, she did well to seek a field for her benign dedication, beyond the Alleghenies! Honor to the all-daring self-denial, which brought to the forlorn bachelor of the west, a companion in his labors, a solace in his afflictions, and a mother to his children!

Her name was invariably Grace, Charity, or Prudence; and, if names had been always descriptive of the personal qualities of those who bore them, she would have been entitled to all three.

In the early ages of the world, names were, or, at least, were supposed to be, fair exponents of the personal characters of those, upon whom they were bestowed. But, then, the qualities must be manifested, before the name could be earned, so that all who had never distinguished themselves, in some way, were said to be "nameless." In more modern times, however, an improvement upon this system was introduced: the character was anticipated, and parents called their children what they wished them to be, in the hope that they would grow to the standard thus imposed. And it is no doubt, true, that names thus bestowed had much influence in the development of character--on the same principle, upon which the boards, to which Indian women lash their infants soon after birth, have much to do with the erect carriage of the mature savage. Such an appellation is a perpetual memento of parental counsels--a substitute for barren precept--an endless exhortation to Grace, Charity, or Prudence.

I do not mean, that calling a boy Cicero will certainly make him an orator, or that all Jeremiahs are necessarily prophets; nor is it improbable, that the same peculiarities in the parents, which dictate these expressive names, may direct the characters of the children, by controlling their education; but it is unquestionable, that the characteristics, and even the fortunes of the man, are frequently daguerreotyped by a name given in infancy. There is not a little wisdom in the advice of Sterne to godfathers--not "to Nicodemus a man into nothing."--"Harsh names," says D'Israeli, the elder, "will have, in spite of all our philosophy, a painful and ludicrous effect on our ears and our associations; it is vexatious, that the softness of delicious vowels, or the ruggedness of inexorable consonants, should at all be connected with a man's happiness, or even have an influence on his fortune."

"That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet;"

but this does not touch the question, whether, if it had not smelt as sweet we would not have given it some other name. The celebrated demagogue, Wilkes, is reported to have said, that, "without knowing the comparative merits of the two poets, we would have no hesitation in preferring John Dryden to Elkanah Settle, from the names only." And the reason of this truth is to be found in the fact, that our impressions of both men and things depend upon associations, often beyond our penetration to detect--associations with which sound, depending on hidden laws, has quite as much to do, as sense.

Among those who have carried the custom of picturesque or expressive naming, to an extent bordering on the ridiculous, were the hard-headed champions of the true church-militant, the English puritans--as Hume, the bigoted old Tory, rather ill-naturedly testifies! And the puritans of New England--whatever advancing intelligence may have made them in the present--were, for a long time, faithful representatives of the oddities, as well as of the virtues, of their fathers.

And, accordingly, we find the schoolmistress--being a descendant of the Jason's-crew, who landed from the Argo-Mayflower, usually bearing a name thus significant, and manifesting, even at her age, traits of character justifying the compellation. What that age precisely was, could not always be known; indeed, a lady's age is generally among indeterminate things; and it has, very properly, come to be considered ungallant, if not impertinent, to be curious upon so delicate a subject. A man has no more right to know how many years a woman has, than how many skirts she wears; and, if he have any anxiety about the matter, in either case, his eyes must be the only questioners. The principle upon which the women themselves proceed, in growing old, seems to be parallel to the law of gravitation: when a stone, for example, is thrown into the air the higher it goes the slower it travels; and the momentum toward Heaven, given to a woman at her birth, appears to decrease in about the same ratio.

We will not be so ungallant, then, as to inquire too curiously into the age of the schoolmistress; but, without disparagement to her youthfulness, we may be allowed to conjecture that, in order to fit her so well for the duties of her responsible station (and incline her to undertake such labors), a goodly number of years must needs have been required. Yet she bore time well; for, unless married in the meanwhile, at thirty, she was as youthful in manners, as at eighteen.