New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-09-01
THE ScHOoLMlsTRESS SOUTH.

| "A
| dreary time before the war. when tho
North and South, under the influence OF
passion. of prlnciple, or of prejudice, angrily
confronted each other, and kept up lively
| interchange of recriminatOn. 1t will be re-
membered, too, that there was nothing in the
North which the South protested to like so
little as the Northern schools, which were
peftishly pronounced hostile to the religious
and civil peace of society. Nobody in this
| regard was more vehement than Gov. Wise OF
Virginia, who long ago found out, we suspect,
that he was somewhat mistaken. At any rate,
the South itself is now in a position so en-
tirely altered, with the conditions of the
problem so completely reversed, that we are
not surprised to find common education no
longer a bugbear in those attitudes AS these
reconstructed States are at last to have
democracy instead of aristocracy, and are to
be governed by suffrage independent of
color, and, indeed, almost universal, the neces-
sity of education has become imperative, and
even the New-England schoolmaster and
schoolma'am will now be warmly welcomed
and generously encouraged. We are not sur
prsed, therefore, to read that Teachers
| Convention has lately been held in Talladega,
Alabama; and we are pleased to read also
that three ladies were present who took part in
the exercises. The everlasting Pilgrim Father
| is in Alabama at last That chief bugbear OF
the Southern mind-a petticOat upon the plat
formulas ceased to be frightful Young ladies
who actually work for their wages will no
| longer be ranked as slaves, for there are no
| longer any slaves to rank them with. Preju-
dices which were once omnipOtent, and
which promised to be immortal, have faded
away, and the intelligent Southerner no more
fears that his boy will be in danger of ruin
for life because taught his A c by be-
| specialized woman from Boston.
The Talladega Convention seems to have
been like other Conventions of the sort to
which in this section of the country we are
pretty well accustomed Miss Mary Horton,
| late Principal of the Mobile High School, read
an essay said to have been good one, upon
the Educational Wants of the South'-an
interesting as well as an impOrtunate topic.
I Miss Horton ia of New-England blood and
woman, we suppose, of New-England ideas.
| Her paper gave rise to an animated discus
sion. from which we naturally infer that it
could not have been duh production, what
ever may have been the opinions advanced
| In it.
For several years past, in season and some
| times, we are obliged to say, out OF season,
we have been informed that whole masses of
| ACCOMPLISHED and earnest minded women in
these United States were wasting their lives
in unavailing regret that no Emission" had
been vouchsafed to them. War came, and it
was found that they made excellent nurses.
nj 10 hat hot
make excellent teachers of the Southern chill
dren. To great extent, whatever culture
the freed people and their children have thus
far received has come from womanly hands.
Speaking generally, we are satisfied that the
work has been nobly and beautifully
| done, for small remuneration, often
| at. the cost of great personal discom-
fort and sacrifice, and with something of a
maternal devotion, which woman alone could
have exhibited. The eagerness of the sex to
have some small share in the great work
during the dreadful struggle for life through
which the country passed, we are inclined to
believe has never been sufficiently recognized,
and never properly appreciated. This has
usually been the fortune Of woman in history.
Her strength, endurance, and suffering during
great public emergencies have seldom been
fairly recorded or adequately estimated as
to their results. Other things being equal
women are certainly the best teachers
of the young. or of the old who
are childish in their ignorance. Nature
having designed them to take so large part
in the earliest culture of the. race, could not
have denied them the qualities necessary for =
work so peculiar, so exacting, and so delicate.
Consequently we find that they have precisely
the qualities which are wanted-patience,
usually sweetness of temper, and always the
choicer intuitions which are sometimes more
useful than the most careful of methods.
They have cOnsciences, too, which have never
been hardened into insensibility by the con-
slant conflicts and competitions which are
Derpetuated by the ambitions, small
or great, of restless and dissatis-
fed men. They calmly and seriously
accent the vocation of teacher as final one,
while to most men it is merely stepping
stone to something which is absurdly consd-
cred higher and more honorable, as If any
other calling could be so.
In the coming Republic, which will be
wiser az well as greater than even the
fondest dreams of patriotism can now pre-
6ouro it, when the waste places shall have
been peopled, when upon plains now deserted
immortal cities shall have arisen, when from
ocean to ocean our tribes shall have left no
territory a silent wilderness, it may be impos-
lille for us to determine the political and So
cial position which is waiting for woman.
Her nature may suffer a change and
opportunity qualify her for participation in
ALI the duties of the commonwealth; but so
long as the race retains its radical qualities.
,t,tn nd