Year: 1869

April 9l, 1869.


DEAR GLEN


| am truly sorry that
you have such poor opinion of School
Marms, for l ami just thinking of turn
ing School Marni myself, but it it is
such a disgraceful occupation as you
represent it. | think would rather not
teach. as l would Ike to be thought re-
spectacle. especially by educated gem
tlemen like yourself l don't know
what else l can do Perhaps you
would advise me to stay at home and
work in the kitchen, as father is farm
er and always has plenty to cook-and
| have several brothers that | might
patch for; but mother says that she can
do without me, that my younger sis
ters are help enough for her. If l go
to the city to do housework will the
person by whom Pm employed con-
slider me as an. equal? No; I'm sure
she wouldn't; she would treat me as a
servant. Would you like for a sister
of yours (if you have one to be looked
down on as a servant? I'm sure you
wouldn't Or suppose l turn sewing
girl. then | would have to sew to please
other people, and if my sewing should
not suit them they would not employ
me. Then, taking in sewing is a con-
tinual vexation. Mrs R mast have
her dress Tomorrow, and Miss N
wants hers before such time, and
thousand other like exclamations are
heard from the lips of a sewing girl
au pale, tired, cross-looking creature,
with no time for any thing but sewing,
and always in hurry. Poor girl! who
wouldn't look cross? No; don't want
to be sewing girl nor servant, and
| don't want to marry: no indaed If
mans throat is the avenue to his atfec-
tions, | don't want his affections at all,
but | don't very much believe that
] don't think man is that near brute.
| dare say some men are very nearly
brutes, but not all Of them.


Now, l don't want to marry, and
what mast l do? would persuade no
man to become "crOuchsng VGSSat,"
which (according to your say so) he
would be if he married School Marin.
| have studied about school teaching
some time, and at last concluded |
would try. l had just arrived at that
conclusion when l read your first pro-
duction; | own it staggered me at first,
but after a little consideration began
to think what one man said wasn't
much, and after reading the answers
you got and your second letter, have
come to the conclusion that you have
particular spite at "School Marms." l
think some pretty, sweet faced little
school teacher must surely broken your
heart, and for spite, you say everything
against the school teachers that your
mullet head is capable of thinking of.
I'm very sorry for you, and | think a
man can teach high school better
than woman, and think be is more
capable of managing large scholars,
but poor, lazy fellow who teaches
country school at all times of the year,
and follows it up as his only means of
getting living, is about as low in my
esteem as School Marms are in yours.
1t looks very we'll for a young man to
teach school in the winter, when he
can't do anything else more profitable,
but he ought to be ashamed to sit IN
the school house all the long summer
days with dozen Cor may be less }
girls and boys, none of them over
twelve or fourteen years of age, and
pretend that he can learn those chill
dren more than woman can. Any
girl who can read and write and has
studied half way through the other
common branches, and has sense
enough to learn baby to play "Pat-a-
cake baker man," can keep such a
school just as well as any man that ever
attempted it. Jessie advises you to
emigrate to Prussia. Now, don't; l
advise you to go to work, you ought to
be ashamed of yourself. Take the plow,
the hoe, or anything else that you can
make an honest living at, and don't un-
dertake teaching school in the summer
time.


Some people say that in the country
there should be no school in summer,
but common sense says there should.
In winter the weather is cold and wet,
and the smaller children can not go to
school through mud and snow, and
then the school is full enough without
them. The large boys can all go to
school in the winter, as there is not
much work to do on a farm in that
season of the year, and boys are con
tinually teasing and tormenting the
smaller children. The teacher can't
prevent it; he cannot be in every part
of the school grounds at once; and
then there is so many larger scholars,
that he can not take sufficient time to
teach the little ones; and little children
ought to learn as fast as possible, and
what better way is there for them to
learn than to go to school in the sum
mer when all those boisterous rough
boys are at work in the fields, where
you ought to be, Clem, you lazy,
growing fellow,-begrudging woman
what little she can earn at school teach