American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-10-09
The School Mistress Return.

The School Mistress Return.
With the faded gardens, the cool shad
ows and the frostsuggesting vapors OF
early September comes the school-mis-
tress. She vanished from among us just
Is the turnips were Towering and the
first wrens were balancing themselves
upon the catalpa twigs by the south win
dow. We remember how weary she
looked as she passed along the street that
last day of school q few steps behind the
prim little calicoed misses and the hilari-
Gus young brats in buttdh-ups. She steps
more lightly now as she goes smiling to
the work and worry of q new term. The
pale cheeks that she took away when she
went out to Kansas to spend her vacation
have gained color from the pink and rus
set tinting of the rich plains sunshine,
and the new light In those eyes which
seemed so dull and sad three months ago
looks like q surprise of the blue sky
through the mist like veil that serves the
double purpose of concealing her freckles
and protecting her against the ill-man-
nered stares of street loafers. She still
dresses in material that can be washed
and "done up" and wears that inevitable
white apron, and the brown kids frayed
at the fnger-ends; but not the Helen OF
the Iliad, "clad in the beauty of thou
sand stars" was so fit to be enshrined in
immortal song.
We owe her . right royal welcome, the
returning September schoolmistress. She
is emphatically one of our things. We
might better spare the whole race of poll
ticians than this modest, earnest, even
tempered step-mother of every body's chill
dren- She it is who, in her quiet and pa
'tient way, sways and fashions the Grant
forces upon which depend, not merely the
rise and fall of rudimentary knowledge,
but the security and growth of all that
preserves and exalts society and gives to
popular government its progress and its
glory. Nine-tenths of our children get
the most of their education in the public
schools, and there can be no higher mis-
sion in such country than that of the
meek-faced woman who, with no crueler
weapon than q bunch of belated mari
Colds or q copy of the last st. Nicholas,
brings the boys and girls, who are to be
our future men and women, safely ana
and clearly through the DECISIVE expert
ences which, more than all s2se OF life, nix
the bent of mind, of mssner and OF NOR
ais. According to me sincerity and skill
of her Iabors past be the character of the
schools: I'D as the shoots are so will be
the cisfzens-which is but saying that so
wsx be the nation, for honor or for shame.
Z The returning schoolmistress will find
things much the same as she left them.
She will see some new cOuntenances
among her pupils, to be sure, and perhaps
. new series of text books, also, but there
is no alteration in the general outlook,
where she dropped it A week hence
she will have the business of her
school reduced to system that
no civil-service reformer could improve.
She will know, not simply the name, age
and scholarly standing of every child un-
der her charge, but also all their Individual
tastes, habits and prejudices- 1t is this
utilizing the peculiar characteristics of
each mind with which she haste deal that
makes the schoolmistress of the period
such pronounced success. With her, to
impart instruction is not to turn the crank
of q machine. Instead of adapting her
pupils to her teaching she adapts her
teaching to her pupils She sometimes
has dozen methods of presenting and
enforcing the same thing, not one of
which IS to be found in any book. If
Johnny stumbles in his syntax she does
not refer him to printed rules that are ten
years ahead of him, but explains his error
70 him in the language of the play ground;
and if little Susie gets mixed in her null
she is set straight again
by some homely illustration which is
worth whole days study to her. Ittook
us long time to learn that teaching is the
special sphere of woman. The school
mistress has won her place in spite of US.
And, having won it, she is entitled to
our grateful recognition IS she appears
again after her vacation (Which, let us
hope, was pleasant and profitable) to re-
mind us that September has come and
schools called"
Our September school,mistress will be |
making wife of herself one of these days.
She always gets married. There is q
place for her in matrimony, Just as there |
ID in education A widower, with five or
six children, Il somewhere constantly |
waiting for her. She could not evade him
If she would perhaps she would not if she
could He is not an educated man, and |
there is a smell of the soil on his garments;
but he has comfortable home and q good /
income, and he will worship her in his |
clumsy way as if she were q second |
Minerva. When he gains her we lose her !
Iorev9. Once wife, not even Septem-
Der can bring her back again; and the in
clination to be wife is the one tempta-
lion that she cannot resist. The trail of |
he serpent Is here as everywhere. Good
md useful and necessary as she is, the be- /
Ietting ambition of her sex will creep in
70 lure her away from rs. Being woman,
.he cannot, or will not, escape her destiny. |
Like all the rest, she is looking and loiter-
ing for the expected husband. Long may
he good Lord delay his comingHSt.
Louis Globe Democrat.