philosophical thinker admits that "such an education is not of women dif The Americans, however, pursue their course apparently American ideal without mistrust, without anxiety. I heard not a hint that any ferent from change in their system, as it regards females, is contemplated.† ours. I conclude, therefore, that they see no reason to doubt its efficacy or its expediency. Their conception of woman's duties, and their ideal of womanly perfection, are, probably, different from ours. To them the Roman matron of the old Republic is, perhaps, the type of female excellence; to them self-reliance, fearlessness, decision, energy, promptitude, are perhaps the highest female qualities. To us the softer graces are more attractive than the sterner virtues; our object is to train women, before anything and everything besides, for the duties of the home; we care less in them for vigorous intellects and firm purposes, and more for tastes which domesticate and accomplishments which charm. But whichever system of culture be accepted as right, it is doing no more than justice to the American method to say that the end at which I have supposed it to aim, it appears to achieve. † as the last clause of the counsel of Pericles; and there is no essential difference in the other reading-soupyoús-which some consider to have most authority in its favour. 66 * Quoted below, note ‡. Mr. Commissioner White of Ohio rejoices that "with the manifest change in public sentiment respecting the value and importance of female education, a demand for thorough and solid instruction is awakened. The education "of woman," he says, "must prepare her for the grave duties of life, as well as to grace a drawing room (11th Ohio Report, p. 48). No one can dispute this maxim; the only question would be what is the education most suitable to the discharge of those duties. 64 Perhaps the language in the text is a little too unqualified, for see the quo- Different views tation from Mr. Randall of New York's Report, above, p. 125, note *. Dr. entertained by Woolworth of Albany, New York, the accomplished Secretary of the Board of Americans Regents, appeared to me to entertain very sensible notions on this subject. He themselves. doubted what the increasing number of scientifically-educated women will find to do, unless the recognized sphere of woman's vocation is enlarged, and the professions are occupied by her. At present the medical profession is the only one of those so-called liberal, into which she has penetrated (if we except an isolated case, here and there, of a recognized female teacher of a Christian congregation), and there is a considerable number of female physicians, who bear and are addressed by the title of “Doctor," practising in the States. I was even told, from the (so stated) actual knowledge of my informant, though the statement seems almost incredible, that one of these medical ladies claimed, as a matter of right, to be admitted to practise as an army surgeon! I do not believe that the spectacle has yet been seen of a female barrister; but the success of Miss Anna Dickenson is attracting many to the career of lecturers. But the great opening for well-educated women in America, at least for such as have not independent means, is as teachers. De Tocqueville's views of the "Education of Girls in the United States" De Tocqueville are so acute and (as they seem to me) so true, that I shall venture to transfer on the educathem to this note : tion of girls in Other influ In estimating, however, the aggregate result of the various ences affecting influences which combine to form the character and develop the the United States. "Il n'y a jamais eu de sociétés libres sans mœurs, et c'est la femme qui fait les mœurs. Chez presque toutes les nations Protestantes, les jeunes filles sont infiniment plus mâitresses de leurs actions que chez les peuples Catholiques. Aux États-Unis, les doctrines du Protestantisme viennent se combiner avec une constitution très-libre, et un état social très-démocratique, et nulle part la jeune fille n'est plus promptement ni plus complètement livrée à ellemême. Longtemps avant que la jeune Américaine ait atteint l'âge nubile, on commence à l'affranchir peu à peu de la tutelle maternelle; elle n'est point entièrement sortie de l'enfance que déjà elle pense pour elle-même, parle librement, et agit seule; devant elle est exposé sans cesse le grand tableau du monde; loin de chercher à lui en dérober la vue, on le découvre chaque jour de plus en plus à ses regards; et on lui apprend à le considérer d'un œil ferme et tranquille. Ainsi, les vices et les périls que la société présente, ne tardent pas à lui être révélés; elle les voit clairement, les juge sans illusion, et les affronte sans crainte; car elle est pleine de confiance dans ses forces, et sa confiance semble partagée par tous ceux qui l'environnent. "Il ne faut donc presque jamais s'attendre à rencontrer chez la jeune fille d'Amérique cette candeur virginale au milieu des naissants désirs, non plus que ces graces naïves et ingenues qui accompagnent d'ordinaire chez l'Européenne le passage de l'enfance à la jeunesse. Il est rare que l'Américaine quel que soit son âge, montre une timidité et une ignorance puériles. Si elle ne se livre pas au mal, du moinselle le connait; elle a des mœurs pures plutôt qu'un esprit chaste. "J'ai souvent été surpris et presque effrayé en voyant la dextérité singulière et l'heureuse audace avex lesquelles ces jeunes filles d'Amérique savaient conduire leurs pensées et leurs paroles au milieu des écueils d'une conversation enjouée; un philosophe aurait bronché cent fois sur l'étroit chemin qu'elles parcouraient sans accidents et sans peine. "Il est facile, en effet, de reconnâitre que, au milieu même de l'indépendance de sa première jeunesse, l'Américaine ne cesse jamais entièrement être mâitresse d'elle-même. Elle jouit de tous les plaisirs permis sans s'abandonner à aucun d'eux, et sa raison ne lâche point les rênes, quoiqu'elle semble souvent les laisser flotter. "En France, où nous mêlons encore d'une si étrange manière, dans nos opinions et dans nos goûts, dés debris de tous les âges, il nous arrive souvent de donner aux femmes une éducation timide, retirée, et presque claustrale, comme au temps de l'aristocratie, et nous les abandonnons ensuite tout à coup, sans guide et sans secours au milieu des désordres inséparables d'une société démocratique. Les Américains sont mieux d'accord avec eux-mêmes. Ils ont vu que, au sein d'une démocratie, l'indépendance individuelle ne pouvait manquer d'être très-grande, la jeunesse hâtive, les goûts mal contenus, la coutume changeante, l'opinion publique souvent incertaine on impuissante, l'autorité paternelle faible, et le pouvoir marital contesté. Dans cet état de choses, ils ont jugé qu'il y avait peu de chances de pouvoir comprimer chez la femme les passions les plus tyranniques du cœur humain, et qu'il était plus sûr de lui enseigner l'art de les combattre elle-même. Comme ils ne pouvaient empêcher que sa vertu ne fût souvent en péril, ils ont voulu qu'elle sût la défendre, et ils ont plus compté sur le libre effort de sa volonté que sur des barrières ébranlées ou détruites. Au lieu de la tenir dans la défiance d'ellemême, ils cherchent donc sans cesse à accrôitre sa confiance en ses propres forces. N'ayant ni la possibilité ni le désir de maintenir la jeune fille dans une perpétuelle et complète ignorance, ils se sont hâtés de lui donner une connaissance précoce de toutes choses. Loin de lui cacher les corruptions du monde, ils ont voulu qu'elle les vît dès l'abord, et qu'elle s'exerçât d'elle-même à les fuir, et ils ont mieux aimé garantir son honnêteté que de trop respecter son innocence. "Je sais qu'une pareille éducation n'est pas sans danger; je n'ignore non plus qu'elle tend à developper le jugement aux dépens de l'imagination, et à intellect of the American people, we must let our eyes range national chabeyond the walls of the school. The agency of the press is not racter. less direct nor less potent. The Americans are emphatically a 1. The press. reading people. I do not mean that, taken in the mass, their literary attainments are very varied or very profound. In the higher ranges of society, no doubt, there are men and women to be met with as plentifully as in the best literary circles at home, whose acquaintance with the noblest products of modern thought and research, and (though not so frequently) of ancient thought too, is at once deep and broad. And, even in rural townships and district libraries, though, as with us, the lighter literature is most in vogue, yet the shelves on which repose the massive volumes of standard authors are ever and anon disturbed by searchers after knowledge whom one would little expect to be attracted there." But these are, perhaps, exceptional cases; and what more than anything else, characterizes the Americans as a reading people is their avidity for news. To an American his morning journal is American almost as indispensable as his morning meal. He eats his breakfast with his eyes all the while fixed upon his newspaper. He is admirably and accurately "posted up" (to use his own phrase) in current events, or at least in his newspaper's version of current events. If he does not exercise a very independent opinion in measuring the relative importance of the several facts, he knows the alleged facts themselves. And to satisfy this appetite, thus unusually voracious, food is abundantly supplied. The number faire des femmes honnêtes et froides plutôt que des épouses tendres et d'-aimables compagnes de l'homme. Si la société en est plus tranquille et mieux réglée, la vie privée en a souvent moins de charmes. Mais ce sont là des maux secondaires, qu'un intérêt plus grand doit faire braver. Parvenus au point où nous sommes, il ne nous est permis de faire un choix; il faut une éducation démocratique pour garantir la femme des périls dont les institutions et les mœurs de la démocratie l'environnent." (Vol. ii. pp. 222-225.) If we "have no choice" we must acquiesce in what is inevitable. But I should have supposed, though I don't think we have quite hit it in England, that there was a mean between the "cloistral education" of France and the "democratic education" of the United States. I quite feel that there is an indefinable something that makes a difference between the relationship of man and wife in America and the relationship of man and wife in England. I do not mean that there is more mutual affection or more mutual confidence, but there is a different tone in the intercourse. I think the secret of the difference lies in this, that the American husband has more respect for his wife's mind. * The following anecdote, which was told me by one of the parties to the circumstances, is amusing and typical. A Harvard student, home for a few days' vacation, wished to finish the third volume of "Motley's History of the Dutch Republic." Going in search of it to the township library-the scene lies in Massachusetts-he finds it in use; and pursuing the inquiry further, learns from the register that it has been taken out by his mother's washerwoman. He goes to the woman's house, sees her, asks her, "Is she 'through "with the book? or, if not, can she spare it to him for just two days?" Well," said the good housewife, "I can't just do that, for I am mightily taken with the book; but I'll tell you what I will do; I'll just put off my ironing till to-morrow afternoon, finish the book in the morning, and then "I'll send it to you." 66 " avidity for news. 2. Lectures. Railway bookagents. of daily newspapers published in the States is quite extraordinary. It would be rare to find, at any rate in the Northern States, a city of 10,000 people without its one, probably its two or three, daily newspapers. Even in so out-of-the-way a place as Ottawa in Canada, with less than 15,000 inhabitants, and before it had become the seat of government, there were printed in September last three daily journals, with their bi-weekly, or tri-weekly issues besides. When I told Americans that we had towns in England by the score, with 20,000 or 30,000 inhabitants, who were still content to live on nothing better than weekly newspaper fare, as far as the local supply is concerned, they seemed scarcely to credit me. Everybody reads these papers. Hackney coachmen, waiting for a fare; storekeepers, in the interval between the exit of one customer and the entrance of another; travellers by steam boats and in railway cars of every grade; everybody, everywhere seems to have a paper in his pocket or his hands, with which to beguile a vacant hour. Every hotel has its newsvendor who distributes hundreds of copies of the more popular journals in the day. As necessary a part of the equipage of a railway train as the conductor or the breaksman, is the boy who traverses the whole length of the cars every half hour, now with newspapers, now with periodicals, now with yellow-covered novels.* The effect of this, I won't say in disciplining or strengthening, but at any rate in quickening, the intelligence and stimulating the curiosity of the people is marvellous. Another influence operating in the same direction is that of lectures and lecturers, The lecture is quite an "institution" in America, the métier of a lecturer quite a trade, and if an effective lecturer, a very profitable trade. Miss Anna Dickenson is said to receive $100 a lecture, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher as much or even more, and the same lecture may be repeated a hundred times in different places during the season. A series of lectures of a high class on topics of literary or philosophical interest, called the Lowell Institute," are delivered in Boston every winter, in which the services of the most eminent scholars in America are engaged, and which attract large audiences. Even country townships do not like to seem behindhand, and in many a Massachusetts and New England village, winter courses of lectures are organized, the expenses of which are defrayed partly by local *Mr. Anthony Trollope has described this system of the publishing trade which is really a nuisance to the traveller more intent upon observing scenery than anxious to try his eyes with small print in a jolting railway car, with equal truth and humour. (See his North America, i. p. 421.) There is an interesting chapter in De Tocqueville on the influence of "journalism" in the United States, which he attributes to the extraordinary "fractionnement du pouvoir administratif," and the consequent formation of small local associations, each with its own interests and policy (vol. ii. pp. 125-129). subscription, and partly by money taken at the doors, which are These Similar is the effect of the constantly recurring part that each 3. Political and citizen has to play in the great and exciting game of politics. With public life. all offices elective, and those offices infinitely multiplied, and for each a keen competition arising, and everything being done through the medium of caucuses, conventions, and other partisan agencies, to intensify excitement to the utmost, the mind of the American citizen who suffers himself to be drawn into the vortex of politics-and almost all are drawn into it-is subjected to the action of what is perhaps the strongest of all intellectual stimulants, calling all the powers and sympathies of his quick, versatile, impulsive nature into energetic play. The calm, contemplative life, in which, to the eye of the old Greek philosopher, seemed to lie the secret of the highest human happiness, has no charms for the American citizen. He is emphatically a man of action, and of intense action. To him the idea of living apart from the great world, its concerns, its interests, even its strifes, would be simply intolerable. Men hardly ever seem to dream of the Elysium, as hard-worked Englishmen picture it to themselves, of retirement. To them life is action, adventure, enterprise, speculation to the *Act, relating to the Public Schools of Rhode Island, tit. xiii. ch. 69, s. 3. An educationMr. Northrop, the Agent in Massachusetts, thus describes one of his days' ist's day's work work :-" At an early hour he meets the school committee, and after conferring 66 46 in Massachu on the general condition of the schools, and listening, it may be, to local details setts. or special difficulties, starts with them at nine o'clock, and visits and addresses eight or ten schools in the morning. In the afternoon, he addresses the "assembled teachers and children and friends of schools for two or three hours, having only a brief recess at the close of each hour, and in the evening gives a popular lecture to an audience still containing many children as well as their parents and teachers, such an audience as can only be held by animation of manner, and variety as well as vigour of thought and illustration, the topics of "discussion being suggested by the teachers, or the committee, or by his own "observation in the schools. The recesses and other intervals of the day are occupied by the various practical questions of parents, teachers, or the committee, or lively social converse (Massachusetts 28th Report, p. 45). After such a day Mr. Northrop must be very glad, I imagine, when bed time arrives. |