CHAPTER V.
EDUCATION.
THE MINISTER’S WOOING.
A man cannot ravel out the stitches in which early days have knit him.
All systems that deal with the infinite are, besides, exposed to danger from small, unsuspected admixtures of human error, which become deadly when carried to such vast results. The smallest speck of earth’s dust, in the focus of an infinite lens, appears magnified among the heavenly orbs as a frightful monster.
True it is, that one can scarcely call that education which teaches woman everything except herself,—except the things that relate to her own peculiar womanly destiny, and, on plea of the holiness of ignorance, sends her without a word of just counsel into the temptations of life.
OLDTOWN FOLKS.
The problem of education is seriously complicated by the peculiarities of womanhood. If we suppose two souls, exactly alike, sent into bodies, the one of man, the other of woman, that mere fact alone alters the whole mental and mortal history of the two.
SAM LAWSON’S STORIES.
“Wal, ye see, boys, that ’ere’s jest the way to fight the Devil. Jest keep straight on with what ye’re doin’, an’ don’t ye mind him, an’ he can’t do nothin’ to ye.”
“Lordy massy! what can any on us do? There’s places where folks jest lets go ’cause they hes to. Things ain’t as they want ’em, an’ they can’t alter ’em.”
PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND.
Those who contend against giving woman the same education as man do it on the ground that it would make the woman unfeminine,—as if Nature had done her work so slightly that it could be so easily raveled and knit over. In fact, there is a masculine and feminine element in all knowledge, and a man and a woman, put to the same study, extract only what their nature fits them to see—so that knowledge can be fully orbed only when the two unite in the search and share the spoils.
“But don’t you think Moses shows some taste for reading and study?”
“Pretty well, pretty well!” said Zephaniah. “Jist keep him a little hungry, not let him get all he wants, you see, and he’ll bite the sharper. If I want to catch cod I don’t begin with flingin’ over a barrel o’ bait. So with the boys, jist bait ’em with a book here an’ a book there, an’ kind o’ let ’em feel their own way, an’ then, if nothin’ will do but a feller must go to college, give in to him,—that’d be my way.”
“Colleges is well enough for your smooth, straight-grained lumber, for gen’ral buildin’; but come to fellers that’s got knots an’ streaks, an’ cross-grains, like Moses Pennel, an’ the best way is to let ’em eddicate ’emselves, as he’s a-doin’. He’s cut out for the sea, plain enough, an’ he’d better be up to Umbagog, cuttin’ timber for his ship, than havin’ rows with tutors, an’ blowin’ the roof off the colleges, as one o’ them ’ere kind o’ fellers is apt to, when he don’t have work to use up his steam. Why, mother, there’s more gas got up in them Brunswick buildin’s from young men that are spilin’ for hard work than you could shake a stick at.”
LITTLE FOXES.
The true manner of judging of the worth of amusements is to try them by their effects on the nerves and spirits the day after. True amusement ought to be, as the word indicates, recreation,—something that refreshes, turns us out anew, rests the mind and body by change, and gives cheerfulness and alacrity to our return to duty.
The principal of a large and complicated public institution was complimented on maintaining such uniformity of cheerfulness amid such a diversity of cares. “I’ve made up my mind to be satisfied, when things are done half as well as I would have them,” was his answer, and the same philosophy would apply with cheering results to the domestic sphere.
Every human being has some handle by which he may be lifted, some groove in which he was meant to run; and the great work of life, as far as our relations with each other are concerned, is to lift each one by his own proper handle, and run each one in his own proper groove.
HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.
Parents may depend upon it that, if they do not make an attractive resort for their boys, Satan will. There are places enough, kept warm and light, and bright and merry, where boys can go whose mothers’ parlors are too fine for them to sit in. There are enough to be found to clap them on the back, and tell them stories that their mothers must not hear, and laugh when they compass with their little piping voices the dreadful litanies of sin and shame.
The word home has in it the elements of love, rest, permanency, and liberty; but besides these it has in it the idea of an education by which all that is purest within us is developed into nobler forms, fit for a higher life. The little child by the home fireside was taken on the Master’s knee when he would explain to his disciples the mysteries of the kingdom.
Education is the highest object of home, but education in the widest sense—education of the parents no less than of the children. In a true home, the man and the woman receive, through their cares, their watchings, their hospitality, their charity, the last and highest finish that earth can put upon them. From that they must pass upward, for earth can teach them no more.
To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably.
Right on the threshold of all perfection lies the cross to be taken up. No one can go over or around that cross in science or in art. Without labor and self-denial neither Raphael nor Michael Angelo nor Newton was made perfect.
THE CHIMNEY CORNER.
We still incline to class distinctions and aristocracies. We incline to the scheme of dividing the world’s work into two classes: first, physical labor, which is held to be rude and vulgar, and the province of a lower class; and second, brain-labor, held to be refined and aristocratic, and the province of a higher class. Meanwhile the Creator, who is the greatest of levelers, has given to every human being both a physical system, needing to be kept in order by physical labor, and an intellectual or brain power, needing to be kept in order by brain labor. Work, use, employment, is the condition of health in both; and he who works either to the neglect of the other lives but a half-life, and is an imperfect human being.
THE MAYFLOWER.
It is a great mistake to call nothing intemperance but that degree of physical excitement which completely overthrows the mental powers. There is a state of nervous excitability, resulting from what is often called moderate stimulation, which often long precedes this, and is, in regard to it, like the premonitory warnings of the fatal cholera—an unsuspected draft on the vital powers, from which, at any moment, they may sink into irremediable collapse.
It is in this state, often, that the spirit of gambling or of wild speculation is induced by the morbid cravings of an over-stimulated system. Unsatisfied with the healthy and regular routine of business, and the laws of gradual and solid prosperity, the excited and unsteady imagination leads its subjects to daring risks, with the alternative of unbounded gain on the one side, or of utter ruin on the other. And when, as is too often the case, that ruin comes, unrestrained and desperate intemperance is the wretched resort to allay the ravings of disappointment and despair.
The only difficulty, after all, is that the keeping of the Sabbath and the imparting of religious instruction are not made enough of a home object. Parents pass off the responsibility on to the Sunday-school teacher, and suppose, of course, if they send their children to Sunday-school, they do the best they can for them. Now, I am satisfied, from my experience as a Sabbath-school teacher, that the best religious instruction imparted abroad still stands in need of the coöperation of a systematic plan of religious discipline and instruction at home; for, after all, God gives a power to the efforts of a parent that can never be transferred to other hands.
If, amid the multiplied schools, whose advertisements now throng our papers, purporting to teach girls everything, both ancient and modern, high and low, from playing on the harp and working pin-cushions up to civil engineering, surveying, and navigation, there were any which could teach them to be women,—to have thoughts, opinions, and modes of action of their own,—such a school would be worth having. If one half of the good purposes which are in the hearts of the ladies of our nation were only acted out without fear of anybody’s opinion, we should certainly be a step nearer the millennium.
PINK AND WHITE TYRANNY.
She had the misfortune—and a great one it is—to have been singularly beautiful from the cradle, and so was praised and exclaimed over and caressed as she walked the streets. She was sent for far and near; borrowed to be looked at; her picture taken by photographers. If one reflects how many foolish and inconsiderate people there are in the world, who have no scruple in making a pet and plaything of a pretty child, one will see how this one unlucky lot of being beautiful in childhood spoiled Lillie’s chances of an average share of good sense and goodness. The only hope for such a case lies in the chance of possessing judicious parents.
AGNES OF SORRENTO.
“Gently, my son! gently!” said the monk; “nothing is lost by patience. See how long it takes the good Lord to make a fair flower out of a little seed; and He does all quietly, without bluster. Wait on Him a little in peacefulness and prayer, and see what He will do for thee.”
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.
“Well, yer see,” said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash down Haley’s pony, “I’se ’quired what ye may call a habit o’ bobservation, Andy. It’s a very ’portant habit, Andy, and I ’commend yer to be cultivatin’ it, now ye ’r’ young. Hist up that hind foot, Andy. Yer see, Andy, it’s bobservation makes all der difference in niggers. Didn’t I see which way de wind blew dis yer mornin’? Didn’t I see what missis wanted, though she never let on? Dat ar’ ’s bobservation, Andy. I ’spects it’s what you may call a faculty. Faculties is different in different peoples, but cultivatin’ of ’em goes a great way.”
“Now, Mas’r George,” said Tom, “ye must be a good boy; ’member how many hearts is sot on ye. Al’ays keep close to yer mother. Don’t be gettin’ into any o’ them foolish ways boys has of gettin’ too big to mind their mothers. Tell ye what, Mas’r George, the Lord gives good many things twice over; but he don’t give ye a mother but once. Ye’ll never see sich another woman, Mas’r George, if ye live to be a hundred years old. So, now, you hold on to her, and grow up and be a comfort to her, thar’s my own good boy,—you will, now, won’t ye?”
DRED.
“Nina, I know, will love you; and if you never try to advise her and influence her, you will influence her very much. Good people are a long while learning that, Anne. They think to do good to others by interfering and advising. They don’t know that all they have to do is to live.”
It is only the first step that costs.
LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW.
“Knowledge has just been rubbed on to me upon the outside, while you have opened your mind, and stretched out your arms to it, and taken it in with all your heart.”
A DOG’S MISSION.
There is an age when the waves of manhood pour in on the boy like the tides in the Bay of Fundy. He does not know himself what to do with himself, and nobody else knows either; and it is exactly at this point that many a fine fellow has been ruined for want of faith and patience and hope in those who have the care of him.
But, after all, Charley is not to be wholly shirked, for he is an institution, a solemn and awful fact; and on the answer of the question, What is to be done with him? depends a future. Many a hard, morose, and bitter man has come from a Charley turned off and neglected; many a parental heartache has come from a Charley left to run the streets, that mamma and sisters might play on the piano and write letters in peace. It is easy to get rid of him—there are fifty ways of doing that—he is a spirit that can be promptly laid for a season, but if not laid aright, will come back by and by a strong man armed, when you cannot send him off at pleasure.
Mamma and sisters had better pay a little tax to Charley now, than a terrible one by and by. There is something significant in the old English phrase, with which our Scriptures make us familiar,—a man child! A man child! There you have the word that should make you think more than twice before you answer the question, What shall we do with Charley?
For to-day he is at your feet—to-day you can make him laugh; you can make him cry; you can persuade, and coax, and turn him to your pleasure; you can make his eyes fill and his bosom swell with recitals of good and noble deeds; in short, you can mold him, if you will take the trouble.
But look ahead some years, when that little voice shall ring in deep bass tones; when that small foot shall have a man’s weight and tramp; when a rough beard shall cover that little round chin, and all the strength of manhood fill out that little form. Then, you would give worlds to have the key to his heart, to be able to turn and guide him to your will; but if you lose that key now he is little, you may search for it carefully with tears some other day, and not find it. Old housekeepers have a proverb that one hour lost in the morning is never found all day—it has a significance in this case.
MY WIFE AND I.
One part of the science of living is to learn just what our own responsibility is, and to let other people’s alone.
People don’t realize what it is to starve faculties; they understand physical starvation, but the slow fainting and dying of desires and capabilities for want of anything to feed upon, the withering of powers for want of exercise, is what they do not understand.
The chief evil of poverty is the crushing of ideality out of life, taking away its poetry and substituting hard prose;—and this, with them, was impossible. My father loved the work he did as the artist loves his painting, and the sculptor his chisel. A man needs less money when he is doing only what he loves to do—what, in fact, he must do,—pay or no pay.... My mother, from her deep spiritual nature, was one soul with my father in his life-work. With the moral organization of a prophetess she stood nearer to heaven than he, and looking in told him what she saw, and he, holding her hand, felt the thrill of celestial electricity.
“I want you to be a good man. A great many have tried to be great men, and failed, but nobody ever sincerely tried to be a good man and failed.”
But I speak from experience when I say that the course of study in Christian America is so arranged that a boy, from the grammar school upward till he graduates, is so fully pressed and overloaded with all other studies that there is no probability that he will find the time or the inclination for such (religious) investigations.
In our days we have heard much said of the importance of training women to be wives. Is there not something to be said on the importance of training men to be husbands? Is the wide latitude of thought and reading and expression which has been accorded as a matter of course to the boy and the young man, the conventionally allowed familiarity with coarseness and indelicacy, a fair preparation to enable him to be the intimate companion of a pure woman? For how many ages has it been the doctrine that man and woman were to meet in marriage, the one crystal-pure, the other foul with the permitted garbage of all sorts of uncleansed literature and license?
If the man is to be the head of the woman, even as Christ is the head of the Church, should he not be her equal, at least, in purity?
The pain-giving power is a most necessary part of a well-organized human being. Nobody can ever do anything without the courage to be disagreeable at times.
Who is appreciative and many-sided enough to guide the first efforts of genius just coming to consciousness? How many could profitably have advised Hawthorne when his peculiar Rembrandt style was forming? As a race, we Anglo-Saxons are so self-sphered that we lack the power to enter into the individuality of another mind, and give profitable advice for its direction.
The truth, bitterly told by an enemy with a vivid power of statement, is a tonic oftentimes too strong for one’s powers of endurance.
WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS.
In some constitutions, with some hereditary predispositions, the indiscretions and ignorances of youth leave a fatal, irremediable injury. Though the sin be in the first place one of inexperience and ignorance, it is one that nature never forgives. The evil once done can never be undone; no prayers, no entreaties, no resolutions, can change the consequences of violated law. The brain and nerve force once vitiated by poisonous stimulants become thereafter subtle tempters and traitors, forever lying in wait to deceive, and urging to ruin; and he who is saved is saved so as by fire.
“There must be second fiddles in an orchestra, and it’s fortunate that I have precisely the talent for playing one, and my doctrine is that the second fiddle well played is quite as good as the first. What would the first be without it?”
“Well, there’s no way to get through the world but to keep doing, and to attack every emergency with courage.”
“We’ve got to get truth as we can in this world, just as miners dig gold out of the mines, with all the quartz, and dirt, and dross; but it pays.”