The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-02-09

day? an;l res and hundreds Of
women. U.t.;'.s.HlIl eli Garth. who have
given wstet L. tfsc thirsty, and bread to
the huns ; IL ll,C,..ciue to the sick.
and snsiits 10 Ike discouragetl-tfe
footsteps heard along dark lane, and in
government hospital. and in almshouse
corridor. and by prison gate? There
may be 10 royal robe-there may be no
palatial surroundings. She does not
need them; for all charitable men will
unite with the cracking lips of fever
struck hospital and plague Hotched laz-
arctic in greeting her as she passes ::
''Hail. hail! Queen Vashti.
Among the queens. whom I honor are
the female day school teachers of this
land. put upon their brow the coronet.
They are the sisters and the daughters of
our towns and cities. selected out IF q
vast number of applicants, because OF
their especial Intellectual and moral en-
dovmelts. There are in none of YOUR
homes women more worthy. These per-
sons, some of them, come out from aff1u-
ent homes, choosing teaching as a useful
profession; others, finding that father is
Older than he used to be, and that his
eycsight and strength are not as good as
once, go to teaching to Tighten his load.
But tell you the history of the majority
of the female teachers in the public
schools when 1 say: '.Father is dead"
After the estate was settled the family,
that were comfortable before, are thrown
on their own resources.
1t is hard for men to earn a living in
this day, but it is harder for women
their health not so rugged, their arms
not so strong, their opportunities fewer
These persons, after trembingly going
through the ordeal of an examination as
to their qualifications to teach, half be-
wildert.d step over the sill of the public
school to do two things-instruct the
young and earn their own bread Her
work is wearing to the last degree. The
management of forty or fifty fidgety and
intractable children, the suppression Of
their vices and the development of their
eXceIlencleS, the management Of
rewards and punishments, the send
ing of SO many bars of soap and fine
tooth conlls on benignant ministry, the
breaking of SO many wild colts for the
harness of life, sends her home at night
weak, neuralgia, unstrung; SO that of all
the weary people in your cities for five
nights Of the week there are none more
weary than the public school teachers.
Now, for Gods sake, give them q fair
chance. Throw no obstacles in the way.
If they come out ahead in the race,
cheer them. If you want to snite any,
smite the male teachers; they can take
up the cudgels for themselves. But keep
your hands off of defenseless women.
Father may be dead, but there are
enough brothers left to demand and see
that they get justice.
Within a stones throw of this building
there died years ago one of the principals
of our public schools. She had been
twenty-five years at that post. She had
left the touch of refinement on a multi
tude of the young. She had, out of her
slender purse, given literally thousands
of dollars for the destitute who came
under her observation as a school teacher.
A deceased sisters children were thrown
upon her hands, and she took care of
them. She was kind mother to them.
while she mothered a whole school.
Worn out with nursing in the sick and
dying room of one of the household, she
herself came to die. She closed the
school book and at the same time the
volume of her Christian fidelity; and
when she went through the gates they
cried: These are they who came out of
great tribulation, and had their robes
washed and made white in the blood of
the lamb.
Queens are all such, and whether the
world acknowledges them or not, heaven
them. When Scarron,
the wit and ecclesiastic, as poor as he
was brilliant, was about to marry Mme
de Maintenon, he was asked by the notary
what he proposed to settle upon madem-
oiselle. The reply was: '.Immortalityi
The names of the wives of kings die
wit n flaar,1 ba mama If f1,1 g..
ron will live always" In higher and
their duty, God viii settle immortalityi
Not the Immortality of earthly fame,
which is mortal, but the immor-
sality celestial. And they shall reign
forever and ever. Oh, the opportu-
nifty which every woman has of being
A queen! The longer 1 live the more I
admire good womanhood. And have
come to form my opinion of the charac-
'er OF q man by his appreciation or nom
appreciation of woman. If a man
nave a depressed idea of womanly
character he is q bad man, and there is |
no exception to the rule The writings
If Goethe can never have any such at |
fractions for me as Shakespeare because |
nearly all the womanly characters of the |
great German have some kind of turpi- |
ude. There is his Mariana, with her |
,landestine schenling, and his Mignon. of |
,vil parcntagc, yet worse than her anceS-
ors. and his : iieI '.sa, the brazen, and |
lis A'litlia Of m:ny intrigUes, and his |
the tt.rnlagant, and his helia, |
he t:rnl, 'Io.i. and his Baroness. and his |
tottntes:s. :.,i,i there il seldom il womanly |
;lI2ra, - IL :il his yoluInnous writ |
ngs st woi.iI be worthy of resi-
lencc III re- 2cctal,le coal cellar, yet |
pictured AMI ti.;,aaatized and eIlblazoned |
I'LL ali the Literary world h compelled to |
ee. Mo- mol Give me William Shakes.
'eare 5 idea of woman; and / see it in
)esdenlona, and Cordelia, and Rosalind, |
nd lmogen, and Helena, and Hermione,
nd Viola, and Isabella, and Sylvia, and |
'erdita, all of them with enough faults
o prove them human, but enough kindly
to give us the authors
dea of womanhood, his Lady Macbeth
My dark background to bring out the
uprene loveliness of his other female
haracters.
Oh, women of America! rise to your
pportun1ty Be no slave to pride, or
Vorldliness, or sin. Why ever crawl in
ne dust when you can mount thrope2
Sc queens unto God forever. Hail |
Tashtil
Again: want you to consider Vashti
be yelled. Had she appeared before
Ahasuerus and his court on that day,
nth her face uncovered, she would have
hooked all the delicacies of Oriental
ociety, and the very men who in their
ntoxicatien demanded that she come, in
heir sober moments would have despised
er. As some flowers seem to thrive
est in the dark lane and in the shadow.