The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1888-02-17
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.


number of applicants, because of their
special intellectual and moral endow-
ments. There are in none of your homes
women more worthy. These persons,
some of them, come out from affiuent
homes, choosing teaching as useful pro-
fession; otbers, finding that father is
older than he used to be, and that his eye
sight and strength are not as good as
once, go to teaching to tighten his load.
But tell you the history Of the ajority
of the female teachers in the public
schools when I 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 arm not
so strong, their opportunities fewer.
These pers ons, after tremblingly going
through the ordeal of an examination as
to their qualifi cations to teach, half be-
wildered 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 hdgety and
intractible children, the suppression of
their vices and the development of
their excellences, the management
of rewards and punishments, the sending
of so many bars of soap and fine-tooth
combs on benignant ministry, the break
ing 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 mono more
weary than the public school teachers.
Now, for Gods sake give them a fair
chance. Throw no obstacles in the way.
If they come out ahead in the race cheer
them. If you want to smite any, smite
the male teachers; they can take up the
cudgels for themselves. But keep your
hands off of defenseless women. Faith
er may be dead, but there are enough
brothers left to demand and see that
they get Justice.
Within stones throw of this bull ding
there died, years ago, one of the princ-
pals 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 a kind mother to them,
while she mothered whole school. Worn
out with nursing in the sick and dying
room of one of the household, she herself
came to die. She cl osed 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 acknowledge them or not, Heaven
acknowledges them. When Scarron, the
wit and ecclesiastic, as poor as he was
brilliant was about to marry Madame
de Maintenon, he was asked by the no.
tary what he proposed TO settle upon
Mademoiselle. The reply was:
s'Immortalityl The names of the wives
of kings die with them; the name of the
| wife of Scarron will live always" In a
| higher and better sense, upon all women
| who do their duty to God will settle inn
mort alityi Not the mortality of earthly
| fame which is mortal, but the immor-
| tality celestial. And they shall reign
forever and ever.
Oh the opportunity which every woman
has of being queen. The longer live
the more l admire good womanhood. And
have come to form my opinion of the
| character of man by his appreciation or
| non-appreciation of woman. If a man
have depressed idea of womanly char
acter, he is bad man, and there is no
/ exception to the rule. The writings of
Goethe can never have any such attrac-
! tions for me as Shakespeare, because
| nearly all the womanly characters of the
| great German have some kind of turpi-
tude. There Is his Mariana, with her
/ clandestine scheming, and his Mignon,
| of evil parentage, yet worse than her
| ances tors, and his Theresa, the brazen,
| and his Aurelia, Of many intrigues, and
| Phiina, the termagent, and his Mel ina
| the tarnished, and his Baroness
| and his Coun tess, and there is sell
! dom a womanly character in all his
voluminous writings that would be worthy
| Of residence in a respectable coal cellar,
/ yet pictured, and dramatized and en-
/ bIazoned till all the literary world is com
/ peeled to see. No, no. Give me William
! Shakespeare's idea of woman, and / see II
| in Desdemona, and Cordelia, and Rosa
| lind, and Imogen. and Helena, and
| H0rmone, and Viola, and Isabella, and
! Sylvia, and Perdita, all of them with
| enough faults to prove them human, but
| enough kindly characteristics to give us
! the authors idea of womanhood, his
| Lady Macbeth, only a dark background
| to bring out the supreme loveiiness Of his
| other female characters.
Oh. women of Americal rise to- your op.
| portunity. Be no slave to pride, or world
| illness, or sin. Why ever crawl in the
dust when you can mount throne? BE
/ q ueens unto God forever Hail, Vashti
/ Again, want you to consider Vasht
/ the vailed. Had she appeared before
| Ahasuerus and his court on that day with
/ her face uncovered, she would have
/ shocked all the delicacies of Oriental So
| ciety, and the very men who in their in-
/ toxication demanded that she come, in
/ their sober moments would have despised
/ her. As some flowers seem TO thrive best
| in the dark lane and in the shadow, and
1 where the sun does not seem Il
/ reach them, 80 God appoints to most
/ womanly natures a retiring and unob
/ trusive spirit. God once in a while does
| call an Isabella to throne, or a Miriam
/ TO take the timbrel at the front of "A host
/ or Marie Antoinette TO queli a French
mob, or a Deborah to stand at the front oi
/ an armed battalion, crying out, Up
/ upi This is the day in which the Lord
| viii deliver Sierra into thy hands" And
/ when women are called to such outdoor
/ work, and to such heroic positions, God
! prepares them for it; and they have iron
1 in their soul, and lightnings in their eye,
| and whirlwinds in their breath, and the
| borrowed strength of the Lord Omnipo-
| tent in their right arm. They walk
! through furnaces as though they were
hedges of wild flowers, and cross seas as
| though they were shimmering sapphire,
| and all the harpies Of he'll sink down e.
their dung con at the stamp Of their wom-
/ anly Indignation. But these are excep-
Il tions. Generally Dorcas would rather
/ make a garment for the poor boy
! Rebecca would rather fill tbs trough
1 for the camels; Hannah would rather
make a coat for Samuel; tho Hebre "
maid would rather give a prescri ~
/ tion for Naaman's leprosv; ths woman OF
4 SsFspta would rather gather q few sticks
| t. cook a meal for famished Elijah
| PhRbe wonld rather carry letter for the
/ inspired apostle: Mother Lois would
| rather educate Timothy in the Scriptures.
When / see a woman going about her
| ing at the table: with kind and gentle
/ h7t firm discipline presiding in the