The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-07-08
Finished.

uOIuc, says Jnc CHTtSCbUU CWtOU. - C1e
has finished her education and next |
fall she will come OUT The chrysalis |
state is ended and the butterfly state
begins. She has been a nun for four
years; and she thinks that quite long
enough. Her father has paid four or
five thousand dollars for her education.
When he takes an account of stock, he |
shakes his head doubtfully; if he dared,
he would question audibly whether the
investment has paid. But he is under
altogether too good discipline to raise
any question. Besides, if the truth
must be confessed, he knows more
about the value of pork than of Latin,
French, mathematics and music. But
he sometimes looks at the finished
young lady, and remembers the artless
and supplemented little girl of eight,
years ago, and in his heart of hearts he
wishes that she had been left unfin-
ished. He has the uncultivated taste
to prefer the pine in its native wildness,
as he remembers it in the pasture of
his boyhood, to the pines in his Italian
garden, trimmed and fashioned in all
fantastic and unnatural shapes.
But though he sometimes has mis-
givings, she never has. She has gone
through the appointed probation; has
completed the process of intellectual
incubation, and has no doubt of her
ability to fly She can generally under
stand the French phrases in the last So
ciety novel, and so she has finished the
modern languages She can play
dozen set pieces on the piano, if she
has her notes and is not out of practice;
so she has finished her musical educa-
ton. She has brought home in her
trunk half dozen crayon copies from
pictures given her by her master, and
after he has gone over them and touched
them up they present a very respect
able appearance; so she is finished
artist. She has read the First Book of
Milton's Paradise Lost and parsed
most of it, so she has finished English
literature She can rattle off the names
of the crowned heads of England, and
knows that William the Conqueror won
the battle of Hastings, that Henry
VIII. was not a model husband,
and that Charles I. was beheaded by
Cromwell; so she has finished English
history. She has committed to men,
DRY the greater part of Buffers Anal
ogy,' and recited it; so she is finished
in moral philosophy. Finished! Poor
girl! Infinity is about her, eternity is
before her, and the germ of divinity is
within her, and she knows it not. Fin
ished! Alas! she does not know as
much as poor Joe of Tom-all-alone's,
for he knew enough to say, l don't
know nothink.' A musician who can
tell you nothing about the schools of
music or the great musicians-the pas
sionate vehemence of Wagner, the in
tellectual depth of Schumann, the ar
tistic perfection of Mendelssohn, the
spiritual fervor of Beethoven An ar
fist who has never learned either to
read nature or to interpret it, to whom
the daisy is only common weed, and
the tree is useful only because it keeps
one who hides beneath its shade from
being frightfully sunburnt! A scholar
who cannot tell you the difference be-
tween an idyl and an epic, between Mil
ton and Pope, between Walter Scott and
George Eliot! She does not even know
how TO walk, but goes along the side
walk with mincing gait almost as ex-
cruciating to the beholder as it must be
to her; nor how to breathe, for she has
tortured her beautiful form into the
semblance of an hour-glass, through
which the sands of life are running
fast. Her expensive education has
given her absolutely nothing but ac-
complishments an ironical term used
to signify the possessions of girl who
has incapacitated herself for accom-
plishing anything. When girl has
finished her education,' she is spoiled,
and lifetime can hardly undo the mis-
chief. Superficiality has developed moth
ing but self-conceit; and even a hus-
band and children will hardly suffice to
take that out of her. But, for the sake
of girls yet unspoiled, we warn poter-
tdmilids against the fashionable board
ing-school that finishes education for
its unfortunate victims. There are
plenty of good girls schools in Amer
lea; no need any more to send to these
finishing shops which are all veneer
and varnish. The true girls school
condemns the high -heeled shoe and the
torturing corset, and gives free, firm
step, graceful carriage, and we'll
developed frame. 1t gives love for
music, not mere mechanical skill al
piano-playing; a love for books, not a
mere memorized list of authors and
their works; comprehension of the
evolution of the race, not mere table
of dates and events; love of nature