Year: 1875

IT is no exaggeration to assert that
holding the situations of governesses who
have h I'd no proper education, no neces-
sary training, and who are entirely desti-
tute of the moral force indispensable to
success in their employment. 1t would
be strange if it were otherwise. Many
girls know that on the death of their
parents they will be obliged to do some
thing whereby they may eat morsel of
bread, but they try to forget the unwel-
come fact and trust to marriage or the
chapter of accidents to relieve them from
their dreaded fate. AT last, however, the
sad necessity comes when perhaps least
expected Forced to decide at once, they
determine to become governesses. Not
even the preliminary examination in read
ing, writing and arithmetic which they
would have to pass in order to become
hall-portcr at one of the Government Of
fees is required The ordinary amateur
governess, who is driven by necessity to
teaching as Il means whereby to provide
herself with board and lodging, enters her
situation as convict under sentence en-
tcrs his prison. She is obliged to spend
a certain number of hours daily in what
she is pleased to call the education of her
pupils. 1t is with Il sigh of relief that
she sees the lesson books put back in
their cupboards and can take up her lace
work. She halls with scarcely ly-concealed
delight an unexpected holiday, picnic,
even an attack of illness or death in the
house-anything which will relieve her
for even little while from the monotony
of the task, which becomes increasingly
irksome She does not think highly of
her Office, so she cannot prevent her
pupils from despislng it, At one time
she domineers unnecessarily to show her
power. At another she overlOoks disobe-
which, having been made, oughtto to be en-
forced She is ignorant, therefore she
naturally resents questions being asked
which she fancies are intended to test her
requirements She deals with her small
quantity of information as treasure to be
impaired in scanty, detached portions at
rare times, but too precious to be given in
large doses. She has no store of illustra-
tions or details to make history a living
study to her pupils, nor any "reminiscences
of places, or recollections of travels she
has read, to render lesson in geography
interesting. When in good humor she
contides to her pupils the details of her
domestic troubles and the small trivialities
of her early life, and reads them her love-
letters, if she is so fortunate as to have re-
ceived any. She is familiar with them in
a wrong way, and weaEens her authority
and lowers herself in their eyes in order to
gain their friendship, forgetting that chill
dren are very sharp and keenly alive to
discover little flaws in them in return for
the rebukes they receive for their own i'm
perfections We want a new system of
training for governesses which shall in
sist on some knowledge of physiology
Few are now properly instructed in the
laws of health, so that they are not pre-
pared to perceive quickly and make al
lowances for the temporary arrangements
to which all children are subject. They
will call a pupil naughty who is only
nervous, and another idle who has simply
got fit of indigestion and is unable to
use her faculties properly.-Saturday Re-
| DieD.