Pia mater

“ For long years the family of the benign and gracious mother, whose wisdom was lavished upon her children, consisted of sons alone, but now, with the advent of "sweeter manners, purer laws," daughters have come to her also, and the alumnae, "the sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair," share in the best gifts their parent can bestow. To Earth also, the term Alma Mater has been applied, and the great nourishing mother of all was indeed the first teacher of man, the first university of the race. ”

“ There are some features of this problem that are quite interesting. The student that does the most for the permanent improvement of the institution that has educated him, commonly called his "Alma Mater," or fostering mother, finds at the time of completing his course, that by that [Pg 191] means he has done most for himself, by advancing more rapidly than others in the course of training and study. ”

“ The mater! He owed her so much in life. And now--now he was contemplating, more than contemplating, making definite, absolutely definite, a decision of which she could never approve, which might even cost him her love.
The mater! Ever since that moment of crisis in Hyde Park--through luncheon, through the rainy afternoon which followed luncheon, over the dinner she had insisted on his sharing--Ronnie had been watching her face, speculating about her, wondering what she would say if she knew. ”

“ Who cares about the girls? No, the parents—the parents of our public in education. Now, Mr. Johns, what is it that every parent who sends a girl to a fashionable school really wants?"
"To get rid of her," answered Johns, with utmost conviction.
"Very true, but that's not all. It's no good to get rid of them for four or five years and then have them back on their hands forever. Parents want them made into charming women—marriageable women. Parents don't dare to say this—least of all to teachers, of whom they are naturally afraid. ”

“ Oh! if I only knew that I could return often to see you, I could go more contentedly. Good-bye, dear papa. Do not worry, papa; I shall always be your Gertie, and a dutiful daughter.
“Good-bye. I thank you, officer.”
“Mr. Pearson, you have a beautiful daughter,” said the superintendent as the girl passed out; “not only in looks, but she is good and loyal to her father. How proud I should be of a daughter like her!”
“I am proud of her. And I am ashamed to think that I have brought on her this disgrace. I feel that I shall never again be able to hold up my head, if I should get out of here.” ”

“ She unfolded her plan.
"You ought to have a tutor during the long vacation, Emil, to help you work."
"Papa can do that."
"Oh, Papa is busy. You ought to have a tutor all to yourself, a student or something like that. If you're really fond of me ask your Papa to engage one. Perhaps he'll get a young man from his own fraternity with whom he can chat in the evening. You will ask, won't you? I don't like people who are conditioned in their studies."
That same night a letter was sent to her beloved.
"Watch the frat. bulletin! Our pastor is going to look for a tutor for his boy. ”

“ Since you are so afraid that by taking this scholarship I am depriving someone else of an education, I know a way out. You can apply the money that you would have spent for me towards educating some other little girl from the John Grier Home. Don't you think that's a nice idea? Only, Daddy, educate the new girl as much as you choose, but please don't like her any better than me. ”

“ Indeed before the school time begins, and in the hours out of school, children are as a rule taken by a maid servant to walk or to skate and so on. Children of the upper classes in most cases receive just as much, perhaps more, of their education from the nursery maid or from the school than from the mother. The father need not be mentioned at all, for as a rule he is an only occasional and unessential factor in the education of the child. ”

“ Other head-mistresses wondered at the latitude she allowed her girls, but she invariably replied:
“I always find it works best to trust them. If a girl is found to be utterly untrustworthy, I don’t expel her, but I request her parents to remove her to a more strict school.”
Mrs. Willis also believed much in that quiet half-hour each evening, when the girls who cared to come could talk to her alone. On these occasions she always dropped the school-mistress and adopted the rôle of the mother. ”

“ Provide, if you can, means to send your boy to college, to educate your daughter, to shelter your old age; yet, remember, before those means can be used, the boy, the girl, the man, may lie each in his silent grave; but though there may never be a college student, a ripening maiden, a gray-haired man, there is now a little boy, a little girl, who stand in need of their father; and a father is of more worth to his son than a college, of more worth to his daughter than many tutors. ”

“ For three weeks, Ralph, until your father returns, you will be given over to the special care of one of these girls; and your father wishes you, as being, he considers, a very wise little boy, to choose your school-mother yourself. Having made a choice, you must abide by it, unless I personally interfere. That I shall not do except under extreme circumstances. Now, my boy, you have no cause to be afraid. Choose boldly the girl you like best, the girl with whom you will be happiest. Remember, Robina was your oldest friend, and Vivian your newest friend ”

“ Fortunately for her, however, a wise instinct had guided the late Latin tutor in the selection of the partner of his life, and the future mother of his child. The deceased tutoress was a tranquil, smooth woman, easily nourished, as such people are,—a quality which is inestimable in a tutor's wife,—and so it happened that the daughter inherited enough vitality from the mother to live through childhood and infancy and fight her way towards womanhood, in spite of the tendencies she derived from her other parent. ”

“ Perhaps I had best come ’nother day, pretty lady, ’cause my school-mother will be coming back, and she’ll be wanting me.”
“Where do you live?” asked Flavia.
“In a big school with a lot of girls. I’s the only boy, and I’s staying there till Father comes back to fetch me.”
“He must mean Abbeyfield,” said the toothless crone, raising her head from where she was lying on a bundle of old sacks. ”

“ Every bill Papa pays is a nail in his coffin, I know. Tomorrow I shall go to Barnard and try to pass an examination, and for one quarter what Madam charges I can get a sound and solid education, and were Papa to die I can leave with my teacher’s diploma knowing something that will be of use to me. ”

“ Clearly some sort of regulation from without would be not only desirable, but essential, unless the development of the individual girl is to be as much a matter of chance as with the fraternities. The line of remedy would seem to be by a proper distribution of upper-class girls and new students—poor dean!—and by the appointment of some responsible older woman as “house mother.” ”

“ He has been offered and has accepted a position in the preparatory school, and some day perhaps he may occupy a professor’s chair at the university, unless some other profession attracts him more. Your father esteems him very highly, and I [Pg 166] think there is little doubt but that you will see him again.”
Lisa lifted a flushed face to her mother. “Don’t tell papa,” she entreated.
“No, my dearie; but he will be very glad to know that you mean to be of some use in the world, and I am sure that he will encourage the kindergarten plan.” ”

“ Our school must not have the air of a school, or we that of school-mistresses. It must be like a great household of which we are the mothers. We will try and teach them love as we understand it, by word and deed. ”

“ If a girl decides upon marriage as her vocation, I'll have her take home economics, of course, but shall have difficulty in deciding upon her other studies. If I omit Latin, history, and algebra, she may reproach me later on because of these omissions. She may find that such studies as these are essential to success in the vocation of wife and mother. She may have a boy of her own who will invoke her aid in his quest for the value of x, and a mother hesitates to enter a plea of ignorance to her own child. ”

“ These are a few of the considerations which led to the remark, in connection with our boy, Bob, that the question of schools and school education is one of the most perplexing and troubling.
No loving mother is responsible for the existing school system, nor could she alter it, if she wanted to. Even if she has a little pinch of the heart at the thought of subjecting her sensitive boy to such an ordeal, how can she dare to do otherwise? Among people of all classes, it is considered proper and necessary, for children to be sent to school. ”

“ Meech, and is with her mother in London. Her mother supports herself and daughter by keeping a school. One of the hindrances will be perhaps that the mother will not be willing to part with her daughter, as she is, no doubt, the life of the school. ”

“ Although the orphans reside permanently in the college, they are, at stated times, allowed to visit [18] their friends at their houses and to receive visits from their friends at the college. The household is under the care of a matron, an assistant matron, prefects and governesses, who superintend the moral and social training of the orphans and administer the discipline of the institution when the scholars are not in the school-rooms. The pupils are divided into sections, for the purposes of discipline, having distinct officers, buildings and playgrounds. ”

“ Here it commences with their weaning, when they are instructed in the mystery of devouring pap; next, they are taught to walk—and as soon as they can walk—to sit still; to talk—and as soon as they can talk—to hold their tongues; thus are they instructed and passed on from one part of the establishment to another, until they finally are passed out of its gates, to get on in the world, with the advantages of some education, and the still further advantage of having no father or mother to provide for, or relatives to pester them with their necessities. ”

“ Among the wealthier classes, scarcely is the infant born when it passes into the hands of the trained nurse, and from hers on into the hands of the qualified teacher; till, at nine or ten, the son in certain countries often leaves his home for ever for the public school, to pass on to the college and university; while the daughter, in the hands of trained instructors and dependents, owes in the majority of cases hardly more of her education or formation to maternal toil. ”

“ This combined judgment of counselor and parent is sure to result in a much wiser choice of work in the school than if the matter had been left to the discretion of the child, who is too immature to see the various occupations in their true relationship. Parents and counselor may meet at the school, or the counselor may go to the home. By going into the home discoveries are often made which could not have come from only seeing the child and parent at school. ”

“ Where everybody is really interested and working, the first great stumbling block in the way of public enterprises has already been surmounted.
In the case of the school, however, the well-trained mother will find additional work to do. We who have been teachers know how vainly we have sought for intimate acquaintance on the part of parents with the school. And we who have been mothers know something of the difficulties in the way of gaining such intimate acquaintance. ”

“ In respect to the direction of children, the elder daughter should take a hint from the manner in which the school-teacher supplements rather than supplants the mother in her care of the young people, leading to a difference in the kind of regard which these feel for them. The sister should always consider herself simply as the eldest, most experienced of the children, and so the natural monitor of the group, and, when necessary, the mediator with the parents. ”

“ It may be objected to this that we now and again encounter a schoolmaster who is able to establish between himself and his pupils a relationship of complete personal confidence, and that such a man is just as well able as the father to instruct his boys about these matters; mutatis mutandis, the same considerations apply to the exceptional schoolmistress as compared with the mother. ”

“ SCHOOLMASTERS and schoolmistresses are put in the place of the parents to educate children in letters and good conduct. They therefore to a certain extent share the obligations and the rights of parents. Furthermore, they are bound in justice by contract to fulfil the special duties which are annexed to their office of training the children committed to their charge. 2. Pupils are bound to love, reverence, and obey their masters and mistresses in all things that pertain to their education in letters and morals. ”

“ When the father and the relatives of the girl pay a return visit, they generally bring with them a graduate of the University. Should the boy be one who has successfully passed the Matriculation standard, he is not subjected to so strict an examination as one who does not enjoy the same dignity. In both cases, however, they must undergo some examination in English literature, composition, grammar, history, &c. ”