SERVANTS.
"Now, master,"[33] said a fond nurse to her favourite boy, after
having given him sugared bread and butter for supper, "now, master,
kiss me; wipe your mouth, dear, and go up to the drawing room to
mamma; and when mistress asks you what you have had for supper, you'll
say, bread and butter, for you _have had_ bread and butter, you know,
master." "And sugar," said the boy; "I must say bread and butter and
sugar, you know."
How few children would have had the courage to have added, "and
sugar!" How dangerous it is to expose them to such temptations! The
boy must have immediately perceived the object of his nurse's
casuistry. He must guess that she would be blamed for the addition of
the sugar, else why should she wish to suppress the word? His
gratitude is engaged to his nurse for running this risk to indulge
him; his mother, by the force of contrast, appears a severe person,
who, for no reason that he can comprehend, would deprive him of the
innocent pleasure of eating sugar. As to its making him sick, he has
eat it, and he is not sick; as to its spoiling his teeth, he does not
care about his teeth, and he sees no immediate change in them:
therefore he concludes that his mother's orders are capricious, and
that his nurse loves him better because she gives him the most
pleasure. His honour and affection towards his nurse, are immediately
set in opposition to his duty to his mother. What a hopeful beginning
in education! What a number of dangerous ideas may be given by a
single word!
The taste for sugared bread and butter is soon over; but servants
have it in their power to excite other tastes with premature and
factitious enthusiasm. The waiting-maid, a taste for dress; the
footman, a taste for gaming; the coachman and groom, for horses and
equipage; and the butler, for wine. The simplicity of children is not
a defence to them; and though they are totally ignorant of vice, they
are exposed to adopt the principles of those with whom they live, even
before they can apply them to their own conduct.
The young son of a lady of quality, a boy of six or seven years old,
addressed, with great simplicity, the following speech to a lady who
visited his mother.
_Boy._ Miss N----, I wish you could find somebody, when you go to
London, who would keep you. It's a very good thing to be kept.
_Lady._ What do you mean, my dear?
_Boy._ Why it's when--you know, when a person's kept, they have every
thing found for them; their friend saves them all trouble, you know.
They have a _carriage_ and _diamonds_, and every thing they want. I
wish somebody would keep you.
_Lady_, laughing. But I'm afraid nobody would. Do you think any body
would?
_Boy_, after a pause. Why yes, I think Sir ----, naming a gentleman
whose name had, at this time, been much talked of in a public trial,
would be as likely as any body.
The same boy talked familiarly of phaetons and gigs, and wished that he
was grown up, that he might drive four horses in hand. It is obvious
that these ideas were put into the boy's head by the servants with
whom he associated.
Without supposing them to be profligate, servants, from their
situation, from all that they see of the society of their superiors,
and from the early prejudices of their own education, learn to admire
that wealth and rank to which they are bound to pay homage. The
luxuries and follies of fashionable life they mistake for happiness;
they measure the respect they pay to strangers by their external
appearance; they value their own masters and mistresses by the same
standard; and in their attachment there is a necessary mixture of that
sympathy which is sacred to prosperity. Setting aside all interested
motives, servants love show and prodigality in their masters; they
feel that they partake the triumph, and they wish it to be as
magnificent as possible. These dispositions break out naturally in the
conversation of servants with one another; if children are suffered to
hear them, they will quickly catch the same tastes. But if these ideas
break out in their unpremeditated gossiping with one another, how much
more strongly will they be expressed when servants wish to ingratiate
themselves into a child's affections by flattery! Their method of
showing their attachment to a family, is usually to exaggerate in
their expressions of admiration of its consequence and grandeur; they
depreciate all whom they imagine to be competitors in any respect with
their masters, and feed and foster the little jealousies which exist
between neighbouring families. The children of these families are thus
early set at variance; the children in the same family are often
taught, by the imprudence or malice of servants, to dislike and envy
each other. In houses where each child has an attendant, the
attendants regularly quarrel, and, out of a show of zeal, make their
young masters and mistresses parties in their animosity. Three or four
maids sometimes produce their little dressed pupils for a few minutes
to _the company_ in the drawing room, for the express purpose of
seeing which shall obtain the greatest share of admiration. This
competition, which begins in their nurses' arms, is continued by daily
artifices through the whole course of their nursery education. Thus
the emulation of children is rendered a torment to them, their
ambition is directed to absurd and vile purposes, the understanding is
perverted, their temper is spoiled, their simplicity of mind, and
their capability of enjoying happiness, materially injured.
The language and manners, the awkward and vulgar tricks which
children learn in the society of servants, are immediately perceived,
and disgust and shock well-bred parents. This is an evil which is
striking and disgraceful; it is more likely to be remedied than those
which are more secret and slow in their operation: the habits of
cunning, falsehood, envy, which lurk in the temper, are not instantly
visible to strangers; they do not appear the moment children are
reviewed by parents; they may remain for years without notice or
without cure.
All these things have been said a hundred times; and, what is more,
they are universally acknowledged to be true. It has passed into a
common maxim with all who reflect, and even with all who speak upon
the subject of education, that "it is the worst thing in the world to
leave children with servants." But, notwithstanding this, each person
imagines that he has found some lucky exception to the general rule.
There is some favourite maid or phoenix of a footman in each family,
who is supposed to be unlike all other servants, and, therefore,
qualified for the education of children. But, if their qualifications
were scrupulously examined, it is to be feared they would not be found
competent to the trust that is reposed in them. They may,
nevertheless, be excellent servants, much attached to their masters
and mistresses, and sincerely desirous to obey their orders in the
management of their pupils; but this is not sufficient. In education
it is not enough to obey the laws; it is necessary to understand them,
to understand the spirit, as well as the letter of the law. The blind
application of general maxims will never succeed; and can that nice
discrimination which is necessary to the just use of good principles,
be expected from those who have never studied the human mind, who have
little motive for the study, whose knowledge is technical, and who
have never had any liberal education? Give, or attempt to give, the
best waiting-maid in London the general maxim, "That pain should be
associated with whatever we wish to make children avoid doing; and
pleasure should be associated with whatever we wish that children
should love to do;" will the waiting-maid understand this, even if you
exchange the word _associated_ for _joined_? How will she apply her
new principle in practice? She will probably translate it into, "Whip
the child when it is troublesome, and give it sweetmeats when it does
as it is bid." With this compendious system of tuition she is well
satisfied, especially as it contains nothing which is new to her
understanding, or foreign to her habits. But if we should expect her
to enter into the views of a Locke or a Barbauld, would it not be at
once unreasonable and ridiculous?
What has been said of the understanding and dispositions of servants,
relates only to servants as they are now educated. Their vices and
their ignorance arise from the same causes, the want of education.
They are not a separate cast in society, doomed to ignorance, or
degraded by inherent vice; they are capable, they are desirous of
instruction. Let them be well educated,[34] and the difference in
their conduct and understanding will repay society for the trouble of
the undertaking. This education must begin as early as possible; let
us not imagine that it is practicable to change the habits of servants
who are already educated, and to make them suddenly fit companions in
a family. They should not, in any degree, be permitted to interfere
with the management of children, until their own education has been
radically reformed. Let servants be treated with the utmost kindness;
let their situations be made as happy as possible; let the reward of
their services and attachment be as liberal as possible; but reward
with justice, do not sacrifice your children to pay your own debts.
Familiarity between servants and children, cannot permanently increase
the happiness of either party. Children, who have early lived with
servants, as they grow up are notoriously apt to become capricious and
tyrannical masters. A boy who has been used to treat a footman as his
play-fellow, cannot suddenly command from him that species of
deference, which is compounded of habitual respect for the person, and
conventional submission to his station; the young master must,
therefore, effect a change in his footman's manner of thinking and
speaking by violent means; he must extort that tribute of respect
which he has neglected so long, and to which, consequently, his right
is disputed.[35] He is sensible, that his superiority is merely that
of situation, and he, therefore, exerts his dormant prerogatives with
jealous insolence. No master is so likely to become the tyrant of his
valet-de-chambre, as he who is conscious that he never _can_ appear to
him a hero. No servant feels the yoke of servitude more galling, than
he who has been partially emancipated, who has lost his habits of
"proud subordination, and his taste for dignified submission."[36]
No mistaken motive of tenderness to domestics should operate upon the
minds of parents; nor should they hesitate, for the general happiness
of their families, to insist upon a total separation between those
parts of it which will injure each other essentially by their union.
Every body readily disclaims the idea of letting children live with
servants; but, besides the exceptions in favour of particular
individuals, there is yet another cause of the difference between
theory and practice upon this subject. Time is left out of the
consideration; people forget that life is made up of days and hours;
and they by no means think, that letting children pass several hours
every day with servants, has any thing to do with the idea of living
with them. We must contract this latitude of expression. If children
pass one hour in a day with servants, it will be in vain to attempt
their education.
Madame Roland, in one of her letters to De Bosc, says, that her little
daughter Eudora had learned to swear; "and yet," continues she, "I
leave her but one half hour a day with servants. Admirez la
disposition!" Madame Roland could not have been much accustomed to
attend to education.
Whilst children are very young, there appears a necessity for their
spending at least half an hour a day with servants; until they are
four or five years old, they cannot dress or undress themselves, or,
if they attempt it, they may learn careless habits, which in girls are
particularly to be avoided. If a mother, or a governess, would make it
a rule to be present when they are dressing, a maid-servant would not
talk to them, and could do them but little injury. It is of
consequence, that the maid-servant should herself be perfectly neat
both from habit and taste. Children observe exactly the manner in
which every thing is done for them, and have the wish, even before
they have the power, to imitate what they see; they love order, if
they are accustomed to it, and if their first attempts at arrangement
are not made irksome by injudicious management. What they see done
every day in a particular manner, they learn to think part of the
business of the day, and they are uneasy if any of the rites of
cleanliness are forgotten; the transition from this uneasiness, to the
desire of exerting themselves, is soon made, particularly if they are
sometimes left to feel the inconveniences of being helpless. This
should, and can, be done, without affectation. A maid cannot be always
ready, the instant she is wanted, to attend upon them; they should not
be waited upon as being masters and misses, they should be assisted as
being helpless.[37] They will not feel their vanity flattered by this
attendance; the maid will not be suffered to amuse them, they will be
ambitious of independence, and they will soon be proud of doing every
thing for themselves.
Another circumstance which keeps children long in subjection to
servants, is their not being able to wield a knife, fork, or spoon,
with decent dexterity. Such habits are taught to them by the careless
maids who feed them, that they cannot for many years be produced even
at the side-table without much inconvenience and constant anxiety. If
this anxiety in a mother were to begin a little sooner, it need never
be intense; patient care in feeding children neatly at first, will
save many a bitter reprimand afterwards; their little mouths and hands
need not be disgusting at their meals, and their nurses had better
take care not to let them touch what is disagreeable, instead of
rubbing their lips rudely with a rough napkin, by way of making them
love to have their mouths clean. These minutiae must, in spite of
didactic dignity, be noticed, because they lead to things of greater
consequence; they are well worth the attention of a prudent mother or
governess. If children are early taught to eat with care, they will
not, from false shame, desire to dine[38] with the vulgar indulgent
nursery-maid, rather than with the fastidious company at their
mother's table. Children should first be taught to eat with a spoon
what has been neatly cut for them; afterwards they should cut a little
meat for themselves towards the end of dinner, when the rage of hunger
is appeased; they will then have "leisure to be good." The several
operations of learning to eat with a spoon, to cut and to eat with a
knife and fork, will become easy and habitual, if sufficient time be
allowed.
Several children in a family, who were early attended to in all these
little particulars, were produced at table when they were four or five
years old; they suffered no constraint, nor were they ever banished to
the nursery lest _company_ should detect their evil habits. Their eyes
and ears were at liberty during the time of dinner; and instead of
being absorbed in the contemplation of their plates, and at war with
themselves and their neighbours, they could listen to conversation,
and were amused even whilst they were eating. Without meaning to
assert, with Rousseau, that all children are naturally gluttons or
epicures, we must observe, that eating is their first great and
natural pleasure; this pleasure should, therefore, be _entirely_ at
the disposal of those who have the care of their education; it should
be associated with the idea of their tutors or governesses. A
governess may, perhaps, disdain to use the same means to make herself
beloved by a child, as those which are employed by a nursery-maid; nor
is it meant that children should be governed by their love of eating.
Eating need not be made a reward, nor should we restrain their
appetite as a punishment; praise and blame, and a variety of other
excitements, must be preferred when we want to act upon their
understanding. Upon this subject we shall speak more fully hereafter.
All that is here meant to be pointed out, is, that the mere physical
pleasure of eating should not be associated in the minds of children
with servants; it should not be at the disposal of servants, because
they may, in some degree, balance by this pleasure the other motives
which a tutor may wish to put in action. "Solid pudding," as well as
"empty praise," should be in the gift of the preceptor.
Besides the pleasures of the table, there are many others which
usually are associated early with servants. After children have been
pent in a close formal drawing-room, motionless and mute, they are
frequently dismissed to an apartment where there is no furniture too
fine to be touched with impunity, where there is ample space, where
they may jump and sing, and make as much noise as can be borne by the
much-enduring eardrum of the nursery-maid. Children think this
insensibility of ear a most valuable qualification in any person; they
have no sympathy with more refined auditory nerves, and they prefer
the company of those who are to them the best hearers. A medium
between their taste and that of their parents should, in this
instance, be struck; parents should not insist upon eternal silence,
and children should not be suffered to make mere noise essential to
their entertainment. Children should be encouraged to talk at proper
times, and should have occupations provided for them when they are
required to be still; by these means it will not be a restraint to
them to stay in the same room with the rest of the family for some
hours in the day. At other times they should have free leave to run
about either in rooms where they cannot disturb others, or out of
doors; in neither case should they be with servants. Children should
never be sent out to walk with servants.
After they have been poring over their lessons, or stiffening under
the eye of their preceptors, they are frequently consigned immediately
to the ready footman; they cluster round him for their hats, their
gloves, their little boots and whips, and all the well known signals
of pleasure. The hall door bursts open, and they sally forth under the
interregnum of this beloved protector, to enjoy life and liberty; all
the natural, and all the factitious ideas of the love of liberty, are
connected with this distinct part of the day; the fresh air--the green
fields--the busy streets--the gay shops--the variety of objects which
the children see and hear--the freedom of their tongues--the joys of
bodily exercise, and of mental relaxation, all conspire to make them
prefer this period of the day, which they spend with the footman, to
any other in the four-and-twenty hours. The footman sees, and is
flattered by this; he is therefore assiduous to please, and piques
himself upon being more indulgent than the hated preceptor. Servants
usually wish to make themselves beloved by children; can it be
wondered at if they succeed, when we consider the power that is thrown
into their hands?
In towns, children have no gardens, no place where they can take that
degree of exercise which is necessary for their health; this tempts
their parents to trust them to servants, when they cannot walk with
them themselves: but is there no individual in the family, neither
tutor, nor governess, nor friend, nor brother, nor sister, who can
undertake this daily charge? Cannot parents sacrifice some of their
amusements in town, or cannot they live in the country? If none of
these things can be done, without hesitation they should prefer a
public to a private education. In these circumstances, they cannot
educate their children at home; they had much better not attempt it,
but send them at once to school.
In the country, arrangements may easily be made, which will preclude
all those little dangers which fill a prudent parent's mind with
anxiety. Here children want the care of no servant to walk out with
them; they can have gardens, and safe places for exercise allotted to
them. In rainy weather they can have rooms apart from the rest of the
family; they need not be cooped up in an ill-contrived house, where
servants are perpetually in their way.
Attention to the arrangement of a house, is of material consequence.
Children's rooms should not be passage rooms for servants; they
should, on the contrary, be so situated, that servants cannot easily
have access to them, and cannot, on any pretence of business, get the
habit of frequenting them. Some fixed employment should be provided
for children, which will keep them in a different part of the house at
those hours when servants must necessarily be in their bed-chambers.
There will be a great advantage in teaching children to arrange their
own rooms, because this will prevent the necessity of servants being
for any length of time in their apartments; their things will not be
mislaid; their playthings will not be swept away or broken; no little
temptations will arise to ask questions from servants; all necessity,
and all opportunity of intercourse, will thus be cut off. Children
should never be sent with messages to servants, either on their own
business, or on other people's; if they are permitted any times to
speak to them, they will not distinguish what times are proper, and
what are improper.
Servants have so much the habit of talking to children, and think it
such a proof of good nature to be interested about them, that it will
be difficult to make them submit to this total silence and separation.
The certainty that they shall lose their places, if they break through
the regulations of the family, will, however, be a strong motive,
provided that their places are agreeable and advantageous; and parents
should be absolutely strict in this particular. What is the loss of
the service of a good groom, or a good butler, compared with the
danger of spoiling a child? It may be feared that some _secret_
intercourse should be carried on between children and servants; but
this will be lessened by the arrangements in the house, which we have
mentioned; by care in a mother or governess, to know exactly where
children are, and what they are doing every hour of the day; this need
not be a daily anxiety, for when certain hours have once been fixed
for certain occupations, habit is our friend, and we cannot have a
safer. There is this great advantage in measures of precaution and
prevention, that they diminish all temptation, at the same time that
they strengthen the habits of obedience.
Other circumstances will deter servants from running any hazard
themselves; they will not be so fond of children who do not live with
them; they will consider them as beings moving in a different sphere.
Children who are at ease with their parents, and happy in their
company, will not seek inferior society; this will be attributed to
pride by servants, who will not like them for this reserve. So much
the better. Children who are encouraged to converse about every thing
that interests them, will naturally tell their mothers if any one
talks to them; a servant's speaking to them would be an extraordinary
event to be recorded in the history of the day. The idea that it is
dishonourable to tell tales, should never be put into their minds;
they will never be the spies of servants, nor should they keep their
secrets. Thus, as there is no faith expected from the children, the
servants will not trust them; they will be certain of detection, and
will not transgress the laws.
It may not be impertinent to conclude these minute precepts with
assuring parents, that in a numerous family, where they have for above
twenty years been steadily observed, success has been the uniform
result.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Verbatim from what has been really said to a boy.
[34] Perhaps an institution for the education of attendants upon
children, would be of the highest utility.
Mr. ---- had once an intention of educating forty children for this
purpose; from amongst whom he proposed to select eight or ten as
masters for future schools upon the same plan.
[35] V. The comedy of Wild Oats.
[36] Burke.
[37] Rousseau.
[38] V. Sancho Panza.