schools will certainly make vain, ambitious, worldly minded men of our
sons, and actresses and _figurantes_ of our daughters, rather than
qualify the boys for fulfilling all their moral and religious duties
in the best possible manner, and the girls for becoming modest,
virtuous, intelligent, exemplary wives and mothers. But I _will say_,
that if these systems do not work such mischief in most cases, it will
be more owing to some powerfully counteracting anterior cause, over
which they have had no control, than to the doctrines which they
inculcate, the branches of human learning which they most recommend,
or the practices which they cause to be followed. It is entirely
immaterial _what_, or _how much_ instruction they profess to give, or
really do impart in all other things, but such as will insure the
fulfilment of our moral and religious duties; the vital objects of all
correct Education will be utterly lost, if matters are so managed in
our schools, that the ever restless, insatiate desire for general
admiration becomes the main spring of action, rather than the love of
knowledge for its own sake, and for the power it will give us of
contributing to human happiness. If once _such_ desire be substituted
for _such_ love, the fountain head of our whole conduct is literally
poisoned. No pure water can possibly flow from such a source; no
essential good--none I mean, which can impart real value to character,
or contribute one mite towards the eternal felicity of the individual,
can ever be effected by him. The only result to be calculated on with
any certainty is, that an eager pursuit of merely external arts and
showy attainments, will take the place of sincere, steady, deep
solicitude to enrich the heart and adorn the understanding with all
those principles of really useful knowledge and exemplary conduct,
which alone can fit us both for time and eternity. Let the project be
tried when, where, and by whom it may, of stamping indelibly on the
human heart such principles of action as all admit it should have, at
least all whose opinions should be regarded in so momentous and vital
a concern, and it will prove abortive as certainly as it is
undertaken, unless "religion, pure and undefiled" as it came from the
voice of God himself, be made the basis of the whole proceeding. _Is
this generally done in our schools, either public or private?_ I most
conscientiously believe it is not--at least, as the gospel commands
us--"line upon line, and precept upon precept;" or even as a matter to
be taught first and above all others. But if any man attempt "_to
build on other foundation_,"--if he strive ever so much to erect the
edifice of Education on any other groundwork, he may possibly rear a
very showy and even attractive house, but most assuredly his materials
will be nothing better than "straw and stubble," continually liable to
take fire from every flying spark--forever in danger of being blown
down by every assailing wind.
In determining on the proper course of Education for our children, is
it not of the highest importance, first to decide in regard to the
situations in which they will probably be placed, and the
circumstances under which they are most likely to spend their lives,
that all the instruction given may have some bearing on such
destination--some peculiar aptitude to fit them for the particular
stations which they will fill? Until society is organized differently
from what it is, all the various honest trades, professions and
callings into which it is divided, must have persons specially
educated for them. But how can this all essential plan be
accomplished, if our children are made too proud for any thing but
playing ladies and gentlemen, or following some two or three
professional pursuits, distinguished from the rest by the dignified
title--"_liberal_?" Ought it to suffice with people in their sober
senses, to hear it urged in opposition to so reasonable a scheme as
that of adapting early Education to the probable destiny of each
individual in after life, that _in our country_ every child ought to
be educated for all imaginable conditions in what is called high life,
because any, possibly, may be attained by any? Surely this would be
the perfection of folly, unless it amounted almost to certainty that a
very large majority of our youth of both sexes would reach such
elevated situations. But it so happens that there is a moral certainty
the other way, and that an infinitely larger portion of mankind will
live and die in obscurity, than can ever become conspicuous for the
possession of wealth, extraordinary talent, or official station. This
obscurity however, would be no bar to the enjoyment of great
happiness, provided half the pains were taken to inculcate principles,
tastes and habits suitable to the future circumstances in which they
would probably be placed, that are very frequently taken to impress
their minds with insatiate cravings after all the highest conditions
of society. _This world_, and this alone, with all its vanities,
follies, and seductive vices, is made the God of their idolatry; and
every thing in future life which is calculated to impede their
worship, becomes a source of unavailing discontent, if not of actual
and lasting misery. To pursue such a course with children is little
short of real madness, even on the supposition that there is no other
state of existence but the present; unless indeed, this life had been
made a scene of uninterrupted enjoyment, instead of one abounding with
much unavoidable suffering--a scene in which to escape sickness, pain,
and poverty, is among our greatest blessings--a scene whose modicum of
happiness consists not in any of those merely selfish, sensual
pursuits, so generally deemed the chief good of life, but in the
diligent culture and exercise of all the powers of our mind--of all
the best affections of our hearts. How is this to be done, especially
in our female schools, which in fact are the great laboratories for
forming elementary teachers for our whole population,--if nearly, or
quite half the time of the pupils be taken up in learning to dance, to
draw, to play on musical instruments, and to acquire polite manners,
by going at stated times to private assemblies, to plays, and operas,
as we have heard is the practice in some city schools. One of two
things invariably follows from this course; either the whole stock of
accomplishments, (as they are called,) however costly it may have
been, is entirely abandoned the moment the girls get married, because
the acquisition has always been to them a kind of up-hill work, for
which they had not the smallest taste--or, such a passionate fondness
is contracted for them, that they can find pleasure in no other
occupation. The fatal disease of discontent is the result in both
those cases. But suppose the last to be the most common. Are domestic
habits, so indispensable to the comfort and happiness of married life,
to be formed by acquiring a passion for public spectacles, for
company-keeping, and for all the preparatory equipments of costly
apparel, and other personal decorations? Can the tranquil pleasures of
retirement, the occupations of housekeeping, the necessary management
of all the domiciliary concerns of which the mistresses of families
must always take cognizance, have any charms for ladies educated in
what is called the fashionable style? Will not all such things rather
be insupportably irksome, if not actually disgusting? How will such
ladies be prepared to meet the numerous inconveniences and troubles,
the many unpleasant, and often painful occurrences that take place,
sometimes even in the happiest families? How can they bear all the
fatigues, the various trials of temper, the actual labors incident to
domestic life, if the sole object of the chief lessons which they have
received at school, has been to attract attention and admiration to
themselves? What, but the most inordinate selfishness and vanity can
be the fruit of such training? Will such preparatory studies teach
them how to keep their houses and families in order--to train their
offspring in the paths of knowledge and virtue--to administer
consolation to the sick and the dying--in a word, to turn all the
numerous incidents of domestic life to the moral and religious
improvement of those over whom it is their business and sacred duty to
exercise a constant and parental supervision? Alas! my friends, there
is scarcely any thing in all nature so illy qualified to fulfil these
momentous obligations, as a young lady educated in what is called the
fashionable style--unless, by the providence of God, she may have been
first imbued under the parental roof, with moral and religious
principles too strong to be overcome by such powerful engines of
destruction as are constantly at work to destroy them, in what are
called, by way of pre-eminence, "fashionable schools." I do not mean
to say that the extirpation of moral and religious principle is really
the object there aimed at. No, far from it; for I dare affirm that
many of the persons thus busily engaged, perhaps the whole of them,
really believe that they are fast accomplishing a very great and good
work. But the sum and substance of it, when stript of all its vain
illusions, is nothing more nor less, in fact, than a very laborious
and excessively expensive process to unfit the unfortunate subjects of
it for every kind of life but such as they are taught to lead at
school; _and that is_, to value all merely external acquirements far
above every moral qualification, and to seek their chief happiness in
the amount of admiration they can procure for these very superficial
and comparatively worthless attainments. They come forth admirably
prepared for a life of alternate excitement and gratification; but for
the real Christian life of self-control, self-denial, and humble
righteousness, they probably have not so much as heard of it, unless
perchance when they have gone to church. They can use their hands,
feet and eyes most exquisitely in attracting admiration; but when
compelled to apply themselves to any of the homely, but really
essential purposes of life, they find themselves most sadly
embarrassed, if not utterly at a loss how to proceed. Are the poor
girls to blame for all this? Far from it; they must have been
something more or less than human beings to turn out differently. The
fault--nay, I must call it the crime--if such misapplication of the
talents which God has given them for far different purposes be
criminal, lies chiefly at the parent's door. _But for them_ there
would be no such course of Education in the world. It is indeed a
course which prepares them admirably for what may truly be called
_public life_; instead of qualifying them to adorn that which is
almost entirely private and domestic--that in which an immense
majority of females are destined to live and to die. What is the
consequence of this incongruity--this manifest disagreement between
the matters taught, and the ends to which they must generally be
applied? What is the aptitude of the means to the great purposes which
parents should aim to accomplish? Are they favorable or not to
domestic happiness? If music, drawing, dressing, and dancing, with a
smattering of some living foreign language, garnished with a few
beggarly elements of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Geology, and
Botany, are the principal ingredients in _this happiness_, then are
the chief pursuits of fashionable female Education eminently
calculated to promote it. But if the following view from one of our
most distinguished moral and religious writers of what female
Education _should be_, has any truth or justice in it, our prevalent
systems of fashionable Education exhibit a most lamentable deficiency
in almost all essential points. This admirable writer says, in the
form of advice to a young man--"For my own part, I call
_Education_--not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but
that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of
character--that which tends to form a friend, a companion, a wife. I
call Education, not that which is made of the shreds and patches of
useless arts, but that which inculcates principles, polishes taste,
regulates temper, cultivates reason, subdues the passions, directs the
feelings, habituates to reflection, trains to self-denial, and _more
especially_, that which refers all actions, feelings, sentiments,
tastes, and passions to the love and fear of God." Elsewhere the same
author remarks--"In character as in architecture, just proportion is
beauty. The ornaments which decorate, do not _support_ the edifice."
Again it is said--"A man of sense who loves home, and lives at home,
requires a wife who can and will be at half the expense of mind
necessary for keeping up the cheerful, animating, elegant intercourse
which forms so great a part of the bond of union between intellectual
and well bred persons. The _exhibiting, the displaying wife_ may
entertain your company; but it is only the informed, the refined, the
cultivated woman, who can entertain yourself; and I presume whenever
you marry, you will marry primarily for _yourself_, and not for _your
friends_; you will want a companion--_an artist you may hire_."
Should any person doubt the preference usually given to what are
called accomplishments, over matters of infinitely higher real value,
let them ask as many pupils as they please, "what inquiries do your
parents, guardians, and friends most frequently make relative to your
studies and progress at school?" The answers will furnish undeniable
proof; for a very large proportion will be found to have been
substantially like the following: "How do you come on in your Music,
your Dancing, your Drawing, or your French?" according as they have
been striving to acquire one or more of these inestimable outfits for
their progress through Time to the realms of Eternity. It is pitiable,
most pitiable, to see the thousands of innocent little girls
throughout our country, many of them without the slightest taste or
talent for these things, still laboring four, five, or six hours in
every twenty-four, to gain a little elementary knowledge of what they
will generally abandon immediately after leaving school, or at
farthest, as soon as they get married--to gain which knowledge has
been the chief object, the painful toil for so many irrevocable years
of all this warring against nature, common sense, and moral fitness.
But suppose the success of such training as ample as heart can wish,
and the poor little creatures are made prodigies of early proficiency
in arts, which are very soon to be of little or no real use to them?
Is it politic--is it wise--in fact, is it not a most sinful breach of
parental duty, to impart to our daughters, as among the most desirable
things in life, strong tastes which they can scarcely gratify at all
without frequently seeking company abroad, nor often indulge at home,
unless by neglecting some of those important, indispensable domestic
employments which devolve exclusively on the mistress of the family?
Let it not be inferred from any of the foregoing remarks, that I am an
enemy to what are called fashionable schools--my enmity extends _only
to some of their practices_. Let _them_ be reformed, and I shall have
no enmity whatever to the title "fashionable," if it be deemed
essential to gain scholars for those who keep them. Let them make it
fashionable to fit their pupils for private life, and for all its
necessary duties, by giving them genuine moral and religious
principles first and above all things; then let accomplishments follow
in their proper, but very subordinate place, and they will have no
warmer friend than myself.
I am well aware that I subject myself to the charge of great
presumption in censuring, as I have done, many of the principal
matters taught at present in fashionable, as well as other schools,
both for boys and girls; and to this charge I am prepared patiently to
submit, provided it be made, if at all, after a full, fair, and candid
examination of all that I have said on these topics. To retract
however, my accusations, will be impossible, unless I could rid myself
of the conscientious belief, and thorough conviction, that not only
the temporal, but eternal happiness, both of the present and future
generations, depends on a radical change being made in regard to the
principal objects of Education, as well as in the means of attaining
them. These _must be_ to prepare us for this life--not as an _end_,
but only as the means of attaining happiness in the next.
My business, however, being more to point out faults, than
remedies--rather to describe diseases, than to offer nostrums for
their removal, I shall leave the curative process to other hands,
sincerely hoping that it may be attempted by some much abler moral
physicians, who will apply themselves to the Herculean task with a
degree of zeal, vigor, and perseverance fully commensurate to the
difficulty and vital importance of the undertaking. There can be no
greater object of human ambition--no more exalted purpose for human
effort--nor any human occupation, the results of which, if the
laborers in this sacred vineyard be successful, can compare with this
either in degree or extent--since human happiness, both temporal and
eternal, is its end, and must be its final consummation. Riches often
perish, and are followed by poverty, wretchedness, and extreme
suffering. Honors frequently fade away, or are snatched from us, to be
succeeded by persecution, calumny, hatred, and disgrace. Sensual
gratifications may never come at all, or _if they do_, bitter
recollections, bodily diseases--nay, incurable remorse for their
indulgence, rarely fail to come soon after; and all this too in
defiance, as it were, of what the world generally calls "good
Education." But pure Religion and true Christian morality impart a
peace to the soul which nothing in nature can destroy, nor even long
disturb; while the unutterable joys and delights of a well spent life
are the sure fruits, the certain rewards of every system of
instruction well followed out, which, without any exclusion either of
science, literature, foreign languages, or tasteful accomplishments,
makes the gospel of our blessed Saviour its beginning, its middle, and
its end.
Milton is indebted for some of the finest passages in the Paradise
Lost to Marino's "Sospetti D'Herode."
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
LOSS OF BREATH.
A TALE A LA BLACKWOOD. BY EDGAR A. POE.
O breathe not, &c.--_Moore's Melodies_.
The most notorious ill-fortune must, in the end, yield to the untiring
courage of philosophy--as the most stubborn city to the ceaseless
vigilance of an enemy. Salmanezer, as we have it in the holy writings,
lay three years before Samaria: yet it fell. Sardanapalus--see
Diodorus--maintained himself seven in Nineveh: but to no purpose. Troy
expired at the close of the second lustrum: and Azoth, as Aristæus
declares upon his honor as a gentleman, opened at last her gates to
Psammitticus, after having barred them for the fifth part of a
century.
* * * * *
"Thou wretch!--thou vixen!--thou shrew!"--said I to my wife on the
morning after our wedding--"thou witch!--thou hag!--thou
whippersnapper!--thou sink of iniquity!--thou fiery-faced quintessence
of all that is abominable!--thou--thou--" Here standing upon tiptoe,
seizing her by the throat, and placing my mouth close to her ear, I
was preparing to launch forth a new and more decided epithet of
opprobrium which should not fail, if ejaculated, to convince her of
her insignificance, when, to my extreme horror and astonishment, I
discovered that _I had lost my breath_.
The phrases "I am out of breath," "I have lost my breath," &c. are
often enough repeated in common conversation, but it had never
occurred to me that the terrible accident of which I speak could _boná
fide_ and actually happen! Imagine--that is if you have a fanciful
turn--imagine I say, my wonder--my consternation--my despair!
There is a good genius, however, which has never, at any time,
entirely deserted me. In my most ungovernable moods I still retain a
sense of propriety, _et le chemin des passions me conduit_--as
Rousseau says it did him--_à la philosophie veritable_.
Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree the
occurrence had affected me, I unhesitatingly determined to conceal at
all events the matter from my wife until farther experience should
discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my
countenance, therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted
appearance, to an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave
my lady a pat on the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without
saying one syllable, (Furies! I could not,) left her astonished at my
drollery, as I pirouetted out of the room in a _Pas de Zephyr_.
Behold me then safely ensconced in my private _boudoir_, a fearful
instance of the ill consequences attending upon irascibility--alive
with the qualifications of the dead--dead with the propensities of the
living--an anomaly on the face of the earth--being very calm, yet
breathless.
Yes! breathless. I am serious in asserting that my breath was entirely
gone. I could not have stirred with it a feather if my life had been
at issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror. Hard fate!--yet
there was some alleviation to the first overwhelming paroxysm of my
sorrow. I found upon trial that the powers of utterance which, upon my
inability to proceed in the conversation with my wife, I then
concluded to be totally destroyed, were in fact only partially
impeded, and I discovered that had I, at that interesting crisis,
dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have
continued to her the communication of my sentiments; this pitch of
voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the
breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the
throat.
Throwing myself upon a chair, I remained for some time absorbed in
meditation. My reflections, be sure, were of no consolatory kind. A
thousand vague and lachrymatory fancies took possession of my
soul--and even the phantom Suicide flitted across my brain; but it is
a trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the obvious and
the ready, for the far-distant and equivocal. Thus I shudderd at
self-murder as the most decided of atrocities, while the tabby cat
purred strenuously upon the rug, and the very water-dog wheezed
assiduously under the table, each taking to itself much merit for the
strength of its lungs, and all obviously done in derision of my own
pulmonary incapacity.
Oppressed with a tumult of vague hopes and fears, I at length heard
the footstep of my wife descending the staircase. Being now assured of
her absence, I returned with a palpitating heart to the scene of my
disaster.
Carefully locking the door on the inside, I commenced a vigorous
search. It was possible, I thought, that concealed in some obscure
corner, or lurking in some closet or drawer, might be found the lost
object of my inquiry. It might have a vapory--it might even have a
tangible form. Most philosophers, upon many points of philosophy, are
still very unphilosophical. William Godwin, however, says in his
"Mandeville," that "invisible things are the only realities." This,
all will allow, is a case in point. I would have the judicious reader
pause before accusing such asseverations of an undue quantum of
absurdity. Anaxagoras--it will be remembered--maintained that snow is
black. This I have since found to be the case.
Long and earnestly did I continue the investigation: but the
contemptible reward of my industry and perseverance proved to be only
a set of false teeth, two pair of hips, an eye, and a bundle of
_billets-doux_ from Mr. Windenough to my wife. I might as well here
observe that this confirmation of my lady's partiality for Mr. W.
occasioned me little uneasiness. That Mrs. Lacko'breath should admire
any thing so dissimilar to myself was a natural and necessary evil. I
am, it is well known, of a robust and corpulent appearance, and, at
the same time somewhat diminutive in stature. What wonder then that
the lath-like tenuity of my acquaintance, and his altitude which has
grown into a proverb, should have met with all due estimation in the
eyes of Mrs. Lacko'breath? It is by logic similar to this that true
philosophy is enabled to set misfortune at defiance. But to return.
My exertions, as I have before said, proved fruitless. Closet after
closet--drawer after drawer--corner after corner--were scrutinized to
no purpose. At one time, however, I thought myself sure of my prize,
having, in rummaging a dressing-case, accidentally demolished a bottle
(I had a remarkably sweet breath) of Hewitt's "Seraphic and
Highly-Scented Extract of Heaven or Oil of Archangels"--which, as an
agreeable perfume, I here take the liberty of recommending.
With a heavy heart I returned to my _boudoir_--there to ponder upon
some method of eluding my wife's penetration, until I could make
arrangements prior to my leaving the country, for to this I had
already made up my mind. In a foreign climate, being unknown, I might,
with some probability of success, endeavor to conceal my unhappy
calamity--a calamity calculated, even more than beggary, to estrange
the affections of the multitude, and to draw down upon the wretch the
well-merited indignation of the virtuous and the happy. I was not long
in hesitation. Being naturally quick, I committed to memory the entire
tragedies of ----, and ----. I had the good fortune to recollect that
in the accentuation of these dramas, or at least of such portion of
them as is allotted to their heroes, the tones of voice in which I
found myself deficient were altogether unnecessary, and that the deep
guttural was expected to reign monotonously throughout.