Schoolmistress

“ Oh! weel, I dare say ye’re right. I’m no’ sure but there is danger in it. I canna say that I think very learned women are best fitted for the kind o’ work that most commonly falls to a woman’s hand.”
“But for the work of a schoolmistress,” said Marion eagerly. “I am going to be a schoolmistress,—not a governess, not a teacher in a school merely, but the mistress of a school.”
“You mean if you cannot do better,” said Mr Petrie. “Better? But that is what I have been thinking about all my life. ”

“ Physical effort brought back the resolute cheerfulness so natural to the little schoolmistress, and she hummed to herself a simple song of long ago, to which she could always hear the buzzing accompaniment of that stranger who had proved to her a faithful, untiring benefactor and friend. ”

“ The schoolmistress has to play mother to all of them, to help them dress themselves, bandage up their pricked fingers, pick up their caps when they drop them, watch to see that they do not exchange coats, and that they do not indulge in cat-calls and shrieks. ”

“ I have not had courage to break it to ’ee, but I’ve seen lately that it would soon come to your ears, and that hev worried me.’
‘Are they educated?’ said the ex-schoolmistress.
‘No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth, they can hardly read. And so I thought that by marrying a young schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach ’em, and bring ’em into genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they are growed up too tall to be sent to school.’
‘O, mercy!’ she almost moaned. ”

“ Marya Vassilyevna drank her tea with satisfaction, and she, too, began turning red like the peasants, and fell to thinking again about firewood, about the watchman....
“Stay, old man,” she heard from the next table, “it’s the schoolmistress from Vyazovye.... We know her; she’s a good young lady.” ”

“ She is intensely loyal to both school and schoolmistress, and one feels on reading her descriptions a fresh sense of regret that it should have been necessary to take her away from an atmosphere that seems in many ways to have suited her so well. ”

“ The Husband of a Schoolmistress writes: ‘My wife keeps a boarding-school for little54 girls. The youngest is just turned six; the eldest about twelve. One of the pupils, just turned nine, was detected in a moral offence. My wife took her into a private room alone and chastised her with a rod. ”

“ The schoolmistress has the grand advantage of a line of duty accordant with her faculties. Women are made for domestic administration; and the little realm of a school is precisely the proper kingdom for an able woman who enjoys the exercise of her faculties. She may be an egotist, as anybody may; but her occupation affords no encouragement to that source of disease and misery. Naturally, she should be incessantly occupied, exercised, interested; so as to have her nerves in a good state. There are anxieties belonging to the function. The children are faulty, of course, more or less ”

“ Don’t be surprised at any time, if you see me coming out with “The Schoolmistress,” or “The Old Gentleman Opposite.” [Our schoolmistress and our old gentleman that sits opposite had left the table before I said this.] I want my glory for writing the same discounted now, on the spot, if you please. I will write when I get ready. How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made! ”

“ It is equally true with girls, as schoolmistresses know equally well. It is in the later years that they get the full benefit of the higher teaching, and that much of what may have seemed the drudgery of earlier work reaps its natural and deserved reward. ”

“ Pinero, who had suggested the new policy, and so happily inaugurated it, was naturally commissioned to provide the next play. "The Schoolmistress" was accordingly forthcoming in due time, and in the composition of this piece the author further developed his ideas as to the scope and meaning of modern farce, ideas which will be found briefly expounded in my introductory note to "The Cabinet Minister," published in the present series of Mr. Pinero's plays. "The Schoolmistress" has a very simple stage-history. ”

“ The Custos has moreover sent fourteen young women to the school to be educated as schoolmistresses, and to be completely under the charge of the resident schoolmistress, his intention being to employ them in the different estates for which he is attorney. ”

“ If I could change places I would rather be the village schoolmistress, plainly doing her day’s work for her day’s wages, than live idly on all the rose leaves, all the flatteries, the world could heap together.’ Then lifting her eyes, a look in them to pierce a guilty man’s soul, ‘At what time should I be likely to find Mrs. ”

“ For, in truth, custom is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress. ”

“ I was just a girl in the village school, when, one day, your grandmother came in to ask the mistress if there was any scholar there who would do for a nurse-maid; and mighty proud I was, I can tell ye, when the mistress called me up, and spoke of me being a good girl at my needle, and a steady, honest girl, and one whose parents were very respectable, though they might be poor. I thought I should like nothing better than to serve the pretty young lady, who was blushing as deep as I was, as she spoke of the coming baby, and what I should have to do with it. ”

“ Head mistress.There seems to be a great difference between the kind of influence and control exercised by a Head Master, and a Head Mistress. The government of a boys’ school approaches more nearly to a republic, of a girls’ school to a constitutional monarchy; whilst classes and teachers change for the child each year, the head mistress is permanent, and follows each through all the classes, knowing her in all her phases. She reads marks, gives encouragement and admonition, and is in immediate relation with the other controlling influences, parents and teachers. ”

“ The mistress of the Fourth Form had a striking personality which could not fail to influence those with whom she came into contact—tall, dark, and handsome, she gave the impression of much strength of will, keen wits, and great abilities. She was a very clever teacher, who liked to push on quick pupils, but was a little ruthless towards stupid girls. She knew how to make the dullest subject entertaining, [63] and expected a high average of work, having no toleration for laziness, and a contempt for incompetence. No girl ever dreamt of whispering or idling during Miss Harper's classes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Again, the head mistress considers herself responsible for good order in every class, whereas in boys’ schools the entire responsibility seems to rest on the individual master; this must always be the case to a certain extent; head mistresses try to avoid indiscipline by insisting on the training of teachers, and resorting to various devices, e.g., a junior teacher is made assistant to a senior, and entrusted with a class of her own, only when she has shown herself able ”

“ Though so far apart, a kindred chord was struck between mistress and maid. The high spirit that smouldered in these two never crossed; but with the smallest tangible demonstration they were fast friends. The girl's horizon now bordered a triune interest;—the church, the mistress, and the parlor floor. Gaunt and spare, she trod her beat. Shy of manner, with eyes looking nowhere, she seemed a human machine of the broom. A woman without kith or kin, without a history, and apparently without a memory. ”

“ It is obvious nowadays that the mistresses of the first two decades of high-school teaching, being the first college-bred women, were suffering from a reaction against domestic interests, and the manner in which these had absorbed the old-fashioned woman. Their best pupils were at once destined for college; they were considered too good for mere domestic life, and were prepared for careers, mostly for teaching. This tendency was naturally accentuated by the fact that all mistresses were single women, with little prospect of any but a celibate life. ”

“ If the head mistress each week looks over the mark-book in the presence of the class and the teacher, she is kept in touch with all, comes to know if there are girls who are wasting their time, and is able to give encouragement or reproof, and strengthen the hands of teachers. ”

“ After graduation I pieced out a summer term in a district school, the regular teacher falling ill. As it was in one of the same schools where my mother had taught as a girl, I tried to imagine what her life and thoughts and hopes had been in those days when she did not know Father, and when I was—nothing.
Besides giving me the opportunity to earn money, teaching was a profitable experience: I found it strange to be the mistress of anything. At first when standing up before the little people, it seemed queer to have them obey ”

“ Every one will immediately picture to themselves Mademoiselle Habert when they know that if she had not kept an institution for young ladies she would still have had the air of a school-mistress. School-mistresses have a way of their own in putting on their caps. ”

“ In junior classes the class mistress has many advantages over the specialist, for she knows what the children can do, the character and difficulties of each, and can adapt her teaching to her pupils. In any case she must exercise control over specialists, each of whom is inclined to think her subject the most important. She can get hold of children, and exercise a stronger influence than an occasional teacher, and the more subjects she teaches, the more intimate will be the relation to her pupils. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A school-mistress must banish her individuality as a woman on the threshold of the form-room; while on duty she must banish every outside interest from her mind. No lying in bed, with her face to the pillow; no weeping far into the night. Headache and swollen eyelids are not for her. If her love-story goes wrong, she must lock her sorrow in her own heart. ”

“ And though there were difficult elements in the household, such as their being three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to understand—the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is the only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil—the law of loving-kindness. ”

“ I knew not what to advise; but whilst I was debating the matter with myself, I happened to mention, that we were in want of a school-mistress. She eagerly adopted the plan, and persevering in it these last ten years, I find her a most valuable acquisition to our society.
She was formed to shine in the most brilliant circle—yet she relinquished it, and patiently labours to improve the children consigned to her management, and tranquillize her own mind. She succeeds in both.
She lives indeed alone, and has all day only the society of children; yet she enjoys many true pleasures ”

“ By dint of bullying and beating, at last I was sufficiently enlightened to be able to read a romance to my mistress, or answer an invitation-note in the negative or affirmative. My mistress had two nieces who lived with her, both nearly grown up when I entered the family. They taught me dancing for their own amusement, as well as many other things, and by their care I improved very much, even in reading and writing. Although a child, I had a pleasure in being taught by two pretty girls. ”

“ It will be obvious to any one who reflects that the loss is great. The cure for it is twofold. The parents may do much by establishing a friendly relation with the form mistresses of their girls. I have known parents who had never taken the trouble to inquire even the names of their girls' mistress. If parents wish to get really the best out of a school, I would say to them (and I am speaking specially to mothers) , you are delegating to the form mistress a very large share of the responsibility for the formation of your daughter's character ”

“ As every female has, when a girl, been in the habit of carrying, letting fall, snubbing and slapping, either her own or some one else's little brothers and sisters, it is easy to say you have been accustomed to children.
[Pg 139] [Pg 140]
Supposing that you enter service as a nursery-maid, there will, perhaps, be an upper nurse, who will be, in fact, your mistress. Your care at home will be to wait on her; and when walking out, you will have to keep the children at a convenient distance while she flirts with her beau, who will probably be one of the British soldiery. ”