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Page 33
"Susan, my child, you must, indeed you must leave me, I want to speak
to Miss Willoughby alone."
"Oh, yes, I know you do; you don't want me to hear you tell her how to
make papa's shirts."
"Fie! my dear, how can you act thus perversely," said Mrs. Sherman, as
she forcibly led her to the door, which had no sooner closed on the
petulant child, than she apologized, with much feeling, and seemed
greatly mortified at this _contre temps_ of her little girl. "In fact,
my dear Miss Willoughby," she said, "she is, with several others,
running almost wild, for want of a good school in the place."
"Oh, madam!" cried Helen, in almost breathless haste, "do you say a
school is wanted here? oh, tell me, would they think me too young, if
I were deemed capable, which I feel I am; for my beloved mother spared
no pains in grounding me thoroughly in the essential points, and, for
accomplishments, I have had the best masters."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Sherman, "could you undertake to impart the
rudiments of music?"
"I am sure I could," said Helen, blushing as she spoke, at the idea of
having, thus, to praise herself, "for when I left off learning, I
could play anything off at sight."
"If that be the case, I can easily get you a few pupils to commence
with, but how will you manage for a room?"
"Oh," replied the enthusiastic girl, cheered by these opening
prospects, "there is a room at the back of our parlour, which, being
so large, I did not care to furnish, it would make an admirable school
room."
"It is, indeed, a lucky thought, my dear Miss Willoughby, and may be,
not only of benefit to yourself, but to the inhabitants of the place;
that is, if you are capable and attentive."
"Indeed! indeed! I will be both. Only permit me to make the trial,"
said the excited Helen.
"That you shall, and have my little Susan to begin with; and the
sooner you do so, the better; but let me beg of you not to be too
sanguine, for fear of disappointment. Let me see, this is Wednesday;
you could not manage to get your room in order by Monday, could you?"
"At any rate," said Helen, "I would take the few who would attend, at
the first, in our little parlour."
Helen, then after thanking Mrs. Sherman for the suggestion, rose to
go; when that lady invited her back to tea, wishing to get more
insight into her plans and capability, before she ventured to
recommend her to others; and she wished that her husband the Doctor,
should see and converse with Helen, for whom she began to feel great
interest, as she had much reliance on his judgment, and penetration
into character. Having gleaned from the early part of her conversation
with Mrs. Sherman, her anxiety about the shirts, which were a new, and
difficult pattern, Helen insisted on taking and doing them at her
leisure, which after repeated refusals, she at length agreed to.
In returning home, she called, agreeably to her promise, on Mrs.
Cameron, who was as much pleased with the result of her visit as
herself.
"See, my dear Miss Willoughby," said she, "how your conduct was
rewarded, as I was sure it would be, for adhering to the right. Had
you sent Nancy for the work, perhaps you would never have got it, and
your qualification as a teacher might never been known. Was there not
my dear Helen, a special providence here? yes indeed there was."
Here, I must beg to digress a little, to urge the advantage of a
thorough education; which can never be too highly appreciated, or too
strongly enforced. Under any reverse of fortune, who can calculate on
the benefits? to say nothing of the gratification it affords in so
many ways. "Knowledge is power," and always secures its possessor, a
degree of influence, that wealth can never command. Oh! would that all
mothers, as well as daughters, could but be duly impressed, with a
sense of its _vital_ importance. Then we should not see girls, day
after day, permitted on any frivolous excuse, to absent themselves
from school: for if time be so truly valuable, as we know it really
is; how doubly, nay trebly, is it, in the period devoted to education.
If we could only rightly reflect, on the true end of education, this
serious waste could never be. What is it I ask? is it merely to
acquire a certain amount of rudimental information, and perhaps a
superficial acquaintance with showy accomplishments? assuredly not: it
is to learn how to think rightly, that we may by thinking rightly,
know how to act so. Rudimental instruction is necessarily the
foundation; and as such, must be duly and _fully_ appreciated; but it
is the _application_ of knowledge that education is meant to teach,
and this must be acquired by "line upon line and precept upon precept;
here a little and there a little," it is not the work of a day; nor is
it to be gained by alternate periods at school. Who know but those who
teach, half the time that is required to recover what is lost in these
frequently recurring, temporary absences. It is not only a large
portion of rudimental instruction that is lost; but those _many_
opportunities, which every conscientious teacher eagerly, and
anxiously, avails herself of, to enforce good principles. This can be
done at no stated periods, but they must be seized as circumstances
call them forth, whether suggested by the teachings of the sacred
writings, or from the ample pages of history: or even from the lesson
she may convey from the sentiment that often heads a child's simple
copy book. If these, lost and frittered away periods, be of no
account, then there is both time and money thrown away by those who
are regular in their scholastic attendance.
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