Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  If what has been said of the probability of a decline in the public taste for what are usually called accomplishments; of their little utility to the happiness of families and individuals; of the waste of time, and waste of the higher powers of the mind in acquiring them: if what has been observed on any of these points is allowed to be just, we shall have little difficulty in pursuing the same principles further. In the choice of a governess we should not, then, consider her fashionable accomplishments as her best recommendations; these will be only secondary objects. We shall examine with more anxiety, whether she possess a sound, discriminating, and enlarged understanding: whether her mind be free from prejudice; whether she has steadiness of temper to pursue her own plans; and, above all, whether she has that species of integrity which will justify a parent in trusting a child to her care. We shall attend to her conversation, and observe her manners, with scrupulous minuteness. Children are imitative animals, and they are peculiarly disposed to imitate the language, manners, and gestures, of those with whom they live, and to whom they look up with admiration. In female education, too much care cannot be taken to form all those habits in morals and in manners, which are distinguishing characteristics of amiable women. These habits must be acquired early, or they will never appear easy or graceful; they will necessarily be formed by those who see none but good models.

  We have already pointed out the absolute necessity of union amongst all those who are concerned in a child’s education. A governess must either rule, or obey, decidedly. If she do not agree with the child’s parents in opinion, she must either know how to convince them by argument, or she must with strict integrity conform her practice to their theories. There are few parents, who will choose to give up the entire care of their children to any governess; therefore, there will probably be some points in which a difference of opinion will arise. A sensible woman will never submit to be treated, as governesses are in some families, like the servant who was asked by his master what business he had to think: nor will a woman of sense or temper insist upon her opinions without producing her reasons. She will thus ensure the respect and the confidence of enlightened parents.

  It is surely the interest of parents to treat the person who educates their children, with that perfect equality and kindness, which will conciliate her affection, and which will at the same time preserve her influence and authority over her pupils. And it is with pleasure we observe, that the style of behaviour to governesses, in well bred families, is much changed within these few years. A governess is no longer treated as an upper servant, or as an intermediate being between a servant and a gentlewoman: she is now treated as the friend and companion of the family, and she must, consequently, have warm and permanent interest in its prosperity: she becomes attached to her pupils from gratitude to their parents, from sympathy, from generosity, as well as from the strict sense of duty.

  In fashionable life there is, however, some danger that parents should go into extremes in their behaviour towards their governesses. Those who disdain the idea of assuming superiority of rank and fortune, and who desire to treat the person who educates their children as their equal, act with perfect propriety; but if they make her their companion in all their amusements, they go a step too far, and they defeat their own purposes. If a governess attends the card-table, and the assembly-room; if she is to visit, and be visited, what is to become of her pupils in her absence? They must be left to the care of servants. There are some ladies who will not accept of any invitation, in which the governess of their children is not included. This may be done from a good motive, but, surely, it is unreasonable; for the very use of a governess is to supply the mother’s place in her absence. Cannot this be managed better? Cannot the mother and governess both amuse themselves at different times? There would then be perfect equality; the governess would be in the same society, and would be treated with the same respect, without neglecting her duty. The reward which is given to women of abilities, and of unblemished reputation, who devote themselves to the superintendence of the education of young ladies in the higher ranks of life, the daughters of our affluent nobility, ought to be considerably greater than what it is at present: it ought to be such as to excite women to cultivate their talents, and their understandings, with a view to this profession. A profession we call it, for it should be considered as such, as an honourable profession, which a gentlewoman might follow without losing any degree of the estimation in which she is held by what is called the world. There is no employment, at present, by which a gentlewoman can maintain herself, without losing something of that respect, something of that rank in society, which neither female fortitude nor male philosophy willingly foregoes. The liberal professions are open to men of small fortunes; by presenting one similar resource to women, we should give a strong motive for their moral and intellectual improvement.

  Nor does it seem probable, that they should make a disgraceful or imprudent use of their increasing influence and liberty in this case, because their previous education must previously prepare them properly. The misfortune of women has usually been, to have power trusted to them before they were educated to use it prudently. To say that preceptresses in the higher ranks of life should be liberally rewarded, is but a vague expression; something specific should be mentioned, wherever general utility is the object. Let us observe, that many of the first dignities of the church are bestowed, and properly bestowed, upon men who have educated the highest ranks of our nobility. Those who look with an evil eye upon these promotions, do not fairly estimate the national importance of education for the rich and powerful. No provision can be made for women who direct the education of the daughters of our nobility, any ways equivalent to the provision made for preceptors by those who have influence in the state. A pecuniary compensation is in the power of opulent families. Three hundred a year, for twelve or fourteen years, the space of time which a preceptress must probably employ in the education of a young lady, would be a suitable compensation for her care. With this provision she would be enabled, after her pupil’s education was completed, either to settle in her own family, or she would, in the decline of life, be happily independent, secure from the temptation of marrying for money. If a few munificent and enlightened individuals set the example of liberally rewarding merit in this situation, many young women will probably appear with talents and good qualities suited to the views of the most sanguine parents. With good sense, and literary tastes, a young woman might instruct herself during the first years of her pupils childhood, and might gradually prepare herself with all the necessary knowledge: according to the principles that have been suggested, there would be no necessity for her being a mistress of arts, a performer in music, a paintress, a linguist, or a poetess. A general knowledge of literature is indispensable; and yet further, she must have sufficient taste and judgment to direct the literary talents of her pupils.

  With respect to the literary education of the female sex, the arguments on both sides of the question have already been stated, with all the impartiality in our power, in another place. Without obtruding a detail of the same arguments again upon the public, it will be sufficient to profess the distinct opinion, which a longer consideration of the subject has yet more fully confirmed, that it will tend to the happiness of society in general, that women should have their understandings cultivated and enlarged as much as possible; that the happiness of domestic life, the virtues and the powers of pleasing in the female sex, the yet more desirable power of attaching those worthy of their love and esteem, will be increased by the judicious cultivation of the female understanding, more than by all that modern gallantry or ancient chivalry could devise in favour of the sex. Much prudence and ability are requisite to conduct properly a young woman’s literary education. Her imagination must not be raised above the taste for necessary occupations, or the numerous small, but not trifling, pleasures of domestic life: her mind must be enlarged, yet the delicacy of her manners must be preserved: her knowledge must be various, and her powers
of reasoning unawed by authority; yet she must habitually feel that nice sense of propriety, which is at once the guard and the charm of every feminine virtue. By early caution, unremitting, scrupulous caution in the choice of the books which are put into the hands of girls, a mother, or a preceptress, may fully occupy and entertain their pupils, and excite in their minds a taste for propriety, as well as a taste for literature. It cannot be necessary to add more than this general idea, that a mother ought to be answerable to her daughter’s husband for the books her daughter had read, as well as for the company she had kept.

  Those observations, which apply equally to the cultivation of the understanding both of men and of women, we do not here mean to point out; we would speak only of what may be peculiar to female education. From the study of the learned languages, women, by custom, fortunately for them, are exempted: of ancient literature they may, in translations which are acknowledged to be excellent, obtain a sufficient knowledge, without paying too much time and labour for this classic pleasure. Confused notions from fashionable publications, from periodical papers, and comedies, have made their way into common conversation, and thence have assumed an appearance of authority, and have been extremely disadvantageous to female education. Sentiment and ridicule have conspired to represent reason, knowledge, and science, as unsuitable or dangerous to women; yet at the same time wit, and superficial acquirements in literature, have been the object of admiration in society; so that this dangerous inference has been drawn, almost without our perceiving its fallacy, that superficial knowledge is more desirable in women than accurate knowledge. This principle must lead to innumerable errours; it must produce continual contradictions in the course of education: instead of making women more reasonable, and less presuming, it will render them at once arrogant and ignorant; full of pretensions, incapable of application, and unfit to hear themselves convinced. Whatever young women learn, let them be taught accurately; let them know ever so little apparently, they will know much if they have learnt that little well. A girl who runs through a course of natural history, hears something about chemistry, has been taught something of botany, and who knows but just enough of these to make her fancy that she is well informed, is in a miserable situation, in danger of becoming ridiculous, and insupportably tiresome to men of sense and science. But let a woman know any one thing completely, and she will have sufficient understanding to learn more, and to apply what she has been taught so as to interest men of generosity and genius in her favour. The knowledge of the general principles of any science, is very different from superficial knowledge of the science; perhaps, from not attending to this distinction, or from not understanding it, many have failed in female education. Some attempt will be made to mark this distinction practically, when we come to speak of the cultivation of the memory, invention, and judgment. No intelligent preceptress will, it is hoped, find any difficulty in the application of the observations they may meet with in the chapters on imagination, sympathy and sensibility, vanity and temper. The masculine pronoun he, has been used for grammatical convenience, not at all because we agree with the prejudiced, and uncourteous grammarian, who asserts, “that the masculine is the more worthy gender.”

  Une virtuose.

  V. Storia di quattro fratelli nati ciechi e guariti coll’ estrazione delle cateratte. — Di Francesco Buzzi.

  V. Zoonomia.

  This word is sometimes by mistake spelt fugal-man.

  Sir Joshua Reynolds.

  Condillac.

  V. Letters for Literary Ladies.

  CHAPTER XXI. MEMORY AND INVENTION.

  Before we bestow many years of time and pains upon any object, it may be prudent to afford a few minutes previously to ascertain its precise value. Many persons have a vague idea of the great value of memory, and, without analyzing their opinion, they resolve to cultivate the memories of their children as much, and as soon, as possible. So far from having determined the value of this talent, we shall find that it will be difficult to give a popular definition of a good memory. Some people call that a good memory which retains the greatest number of ideas for the longest time. Others prefer a recollective to a retentive memory, and value not so much the number; as the selection, of facts; not so much the mass, or even the antiquity, of accumulated treasure, as the power of producing current specie for immediate use. Memory is sometimes spoken of as if it were a faculty admirable in itself, without any union with the other powers of the mind. Amongst those who allow that memory has no independent claim to regard, there are yet many who believe, that a superior degree of memory is essential to the successful exercise of the higher faculties, such as judgment and invention. The degree in which it is useful to those powers, has not, however, been determined. Those who are governed in their opinions by precedent and authority, can produce many learned names, to prove that memory was held in the highest estimation amongst the great men of antiquity; it was cultivated with much anxiety in their public institutions, and in their private education. But there were many circumstances, which formerly contributed to make a great memory essential to a great man. In civil and military employments, amongst the ancients, it was in a high degree requisite. Generals were expected to know by heart the names of the soldiers in their armies; demagogues, who hoped to please the people, were expected to know the names of all their fellow-citizens. Orators, who did not speak extempore, were obliged to get their long orations by rote. Those who studied science or philosophy, were obliged to cultivate their memory with incessant care, because, if they frequented the schools for instruction, they treasured up the sayings of the masters of different sects, and learned their doctrines only by oral instruction. Manuscripts were frequently got by heart by those who were eager to secure the knowledge they contained, and who had not opportunities of recurring to the originals. It is not surprising, therefore, that memory, to which so much was trusted, should have been held in such high esteem.

  At the revival of literature in Europe, before the discovery of the art of printing, it was scarcely possible to make any progress in the literature of the age, without possessing a retentive memory. A man who had read a few manuscripts, and could repeat them, was a wonder, and a treasure: he could travel from place to place, and live by his learning; he was a circulating library to a nation, and the more books he could carry in his head, the better: he was certain of an admiring audience if he could repeat what Aristotle or Saint Jerome had written; and he had far more encouragement to engrave the words of others on his memory, than to invent or judge for himself.

  In the twelfth century, above six hundred scholars assembled in the forests of Champagne, to hear the lectures of the learned Abeillard; they made themselves huts of the boughs of trees, and in this new academic grove were satisfied to go almost without the necessaries of life. In the specimens of Abeillard’s composition, which are handed down to us, we may discover proofs of his having been vain of a surprising memory; it seems to have been the superior faculty of his mind: his six hundred pupils could carry away with them only so much of his learning as they could get by heart during his course of lectures; and he who had the best memory, must have been best paid for his journey.

  The art of printing, by multiplying copies so as to put them within the easy reference of all classes of people, has lowered the value of this species of retentive memory. It is better to refer to the book itself, than to the man who has read the book. Knowledge is now ready classed for use, and it is safely stored up in the great common-place books of public libraries. A man of literature need not incumber his memory with whole passages from the authors he wants to quote; he need only mark down the page, and the words are safe.

  Mere erudition does not in these days ensure permanent fame. The names of the Abbé de Longuerue, and of the Florentine librarian Magliabechi, excite no vivid emotions in the minds of those who have heard of them before; and there are many, perhaps not illiterate persons, who would not be ashamed to own that they had never heard of them at all. Yet these men were
both of them, but a few years ago, remarkable for extraordinary memory and erudition. When M. de Longuerue was a child, he was such a prodigy of memory and knowledge, that Lewis the fourteenth, passing through the abbé’s province, stopped to see and hear him. When he grew up, Paris consulted him as the oracle of learning. His erudition, says d’Alembert, was not only prodigious, but actually terrible. Greek and Hebrew were more familiar to him than his native tongue. His memory was so well furnished with historic facts, with chronological and topographical knowledge, that upon hearing a person assert in conversation, that it would be a difficult task to write a good historical description of France, he asserted, that he could do it from memory, without consulting any books. All he asked, was, to have some maps of France laid before him: these recalled to his mind the history of each province, of all the fiefs of the crown of each city, and even of each distinguished nobleman’s seat in the kingdom. He wrote his folio history in a year. It was admired as a great curiosity in manuscript; but when it came to be printed, sundry gross errours appeared: he was obliged to take out several leaves in correcting the press. The edition was very expensive, and the work, at last, would have been rather more acceptable to the public, if the author had not written it from memory. Love of the wonderful must yield to esteem for the useful.

  The effect which all this erudition had upon the Abbé de Longuerue’s taste, judgment, and imagination, is worth our attention. Some of his opinions speak sufficiently for our purpose. He was of opinion that the English have never done any good, since they renounced the study of Greek and Arabic, for Geometry and Physics. He was of opinion, that two antiquarian books upon Homer, viz. Antiquitates Homericæ and Homeri Gnomologia, are preferable to Homer himself. He would rather have them, he declared, because with these he had all that was useful in the poet, without being obliged to go through long stories, which put him to sleep. “As for that madman Ariosto,” said he, “I sometimes divert myself with him.” One odd volume of Racine was the only French book to be found in his library. His erudition died with him, and the world has not profited much by his surprising memory.