Wichita eagle., 1889-07-26
THE SCEOOLMA'AM.
From the Kansas Chief.

IdE SCHOOhAA AN.
From the Kansas Chief.
She will soon be with US, to stay
month, and make things bright with her
presence. We welcome her.
We have always had warm side for
the schoolma' am. She is a ruStler. She
Is the pioneer. the advance guard of
civilization. Away out on the frontier,
in advance of the quail and the honey
bee, where the hunter, the trapper, and
the Methodist preacher roam in search
of game, there will be found the school
ma'am, gathering up the scattered child
rem to form a school. And all over the
land, in cities, towns, villages and in
sparsely settled districts, the school
ma'am is ever present. She is the girl
OF ambition and energy. Leaving her
crowded home, where there are already
too many TO provide for, in New Eng
land. in Ohio, or in the great west, she
strikes out to make her own way in the
world-and she makes it.
You may see her, from early fall until
late in the spring, start forth to her
school, often several miles distant.
Whether the skies be bright, whether
the rain be falling, whether the morn
ing be bleak and the ground covered
deep with snow and ice, it is all the
same. She HES forth, tidily clad, and
and with bright countenance, to undergo
the routine of drudgery of the day, and
at its close to trudge back over the same
road to the place which, for the time be-
ing, she calls her home. For in thou
sands of cases the school ma'am has no
home. Her abiding place is in the home
of some one else, who will consent to
harbor her during the term of school. 1t
may be each year a different place, &C
cording to the whims of school boards
or the grumblings of patrons who are
hard to please. 1t has been said that
schoolma ans are easy to mary and will
take whoever is offered. This may
not in all. But is it any Won
der if it were true: One whose
life is constant round of drudgery
forced to seek place where she may
it any wonder that she is eager to secure
a permanent nome of her own?
The schoolma'a am is proverbially neat
the exceptions are few. And she is
sweet tempered with a few exceptions.
neS6 are Tie StldIScot llIuSo VI il.
Fifty mothers almost crazy by the up
roar made by their children, hustle them
off to school to be rid of them, often be-
fore they have reached the proper age TO
be sent to school; they shift their worry
upon the schoOlma'am. Fifty mothers,
unable to keep their children out of the
dust and waliow, send them off to be
looked after by the schOolma am. And
so the unruly children of fifty mothers,
the babies that fifty mothers have been
unable to keep clean and tidy, are all
dumped upon the schoolma am. She
must keep them all in order for whole
day, and at evening she must come forth
from the school-room as neat and as
bright and as sweet-tempered as If she
had enjoved the most pleasant time inn
aginable.
We have heard it asserted that school
ma'ams were bold and brazen. If it
were SO. what wonder? They are COM
PEELED to push their own way III the
world, to seek positions in which to earn
a living, and to fight their own battles.
Some assurance Is required for this. And
they always have TO deal with men
sometimes rough and unprincipled men
very seldom with persons of their own
sex. 1t is very common to hear men who
make it o business to corrupt female
virtue, railing against the virtue of
ans in general. We venture
to say that there is larger percentage
of virtuOuS schOolma ans than can be
found in any other class OF women.
Could it be known how many of them
have repealed the advances of iecherous
members of school boards, who imagined |
that by giving them an opportunity to
earn a living, they were comforting a
favor that called even for surrender of
virtue, the showing would be something
We venture to say that |
many a man who talks sneerlngly OF the /
virtue of schoolma ans still has ting /
ling about the ears that REFUNDS him of !
his own failure to prove his theory. The |
is forced to be bold, and TO |
business with men of unsavory |
and then their own reputa- |
tons are smirched because of it. They |
are forced to take charge of dirt and un- /
but are required to keep them !
selves faultlessly tidy. They are COM
PEELED TO live a homeless life, and are |
blamed if they are too eager to secure a /
home. And in her helpless condition |
and isolated life she is frequently sub
jected to brutal outrages.
We believe in the schoolma'am. She
has move on her. She has grit and en-
ergy. She makes men and women. She
is at the head of every good work for the
the entertainment, or the
of the community. Driven
from place to place she quickly forms
mountaineering and attachments. and
makes herself useful. Between schools,
she often puts IN her vacation and sea-
son Of rest by taking and improving
homestead on the frontier and acquiring
that perhaps some Of those fell
lows who think q schoolma am viii
marry any body will be trying TO acquire
by marriage, some Of these days.
Bully for the schoolma'a am. and God
bless her,
Somebody has undertaken to give his
IDEAS Of the schoolma'am IN rhyme, rs
follows:
TIE sCHoOLAA'AM-
like the genial warmth OF spring,
Aud the cheerful notes Of the birds,
Are her bright and pleasant smile.
And her kind and gentle words
''The frail and the tender chords
Ia the hearts Of those future men
Respond 70 her delicate touch,
To yibrate again and again
INSPIRED with kindness and love,
She labors from year 70 year,
And is doing the n0blest work
VOuchsafed to woman's sphere.
could we bat SIX in that school,
Nho've been worn by care aac strife.
That cur sear'd aud githered hearts
a