satisfactory references, the daily-teacher obtains a comfortable place to go to in an odd half hour; a place where there is a good fire, soap and water, the newspapers of the day, and the best periodicals, and a comfortable luncheon to be had cheap. There are few chances for daily-governesses seeing newspapers and reviews; and hitherto it has been much too common to go hungry for many hours of the day, or to snatch food in a shop, at a dear rate, and in awkward circumstances. Now that improvement has begun, we may hope it will go on. The new refreshment houses may prove a valuable resource to ladies employed within distances which will enable them to meet for dinner, at a moderate contract price, or who may keep one another in countenance at such tables d’hôte as will probably be instituted at the new establishments.
When the ill-health of governesses is spoken of, however, the allusion is to the family governess class, which undergoes all the evils of the other varieties, with grave and peculiar sufferings of its own. I am not disposed to repeat here the well-known descriptions and appeals, of which the world’s heart is weary, derived from the life and lot of the governess, and used as tragic material for fiction, or opportunity for declamation against society. I have too much sympathy with the class which suffer keenly and indignantly under such picture-drawing as the Brontes, and many other novelists have, thrust into every house. Keenly indignant women may reasonably be, who know that the Brontes’ prodigious portraits and analyses of love-lorn governesses have been read by their employers, and their pupils, and every visitor who comes to the house. They feel that they have their troubles in life, like everybody else; and that they ought, like other people, to have the privilege of privacy, and of getting over their griefs as they may. They have no gratitude for the Brontes; and will have none for any self-constituted artist, or any champion, who raises a sensation at their expense, or a clamour on their behalf. Moreover, there is too much to be said on the part of the employers to render it at all fair to carry on the advocacy which has thus far been entirely one-sided. The worthiest of the governess order are among the readiest people in society to discern and admit the hardships of the employing class who are at present very unpopular. They see and feel what the sacrifice is when parents receive into their home a stranger who must either be discontented from neglect, or an intruder upon their domestic party, who is scarcely likely to be happy herself, or acceptable to them; and who is, at best, a constant care upon their minds, and a perpetual restraint in their home. If it is so at the best, what description could exaggerate the misery of the household in which there is a series of bad governesses? From the overcrowding of the vocation, bad governesses are very numerous;—adventuresses who hope to catch a husband and an establishment of one or another degree of value; fawning liars, who try to obtain a maintenance and more or less luxury by flattery and subservience; ignorant pretenders, who, wanting bread, promise things which they cannot do:—these, and the merely infirm in health or temper, might furnish as much true material for domestic tragedy as any number of oppressed governesses. While the fact is so, it must be wrong to make a party in favour of an employed class at the expense of an employing one which might make a strong impression in its own favour by condescending to an appeal to the imagination and passions of society. Some of the best members of both classes tell us that the relation of parents and domestic governess is an essentially false one; and that all declamation and all reproach is consequently thrown away upon it. This is a view of extreme importance, which demands grave consideration. Meantime, as there are actually far more governesses than are qualified for the work to be done, and as the order will certainly continue to exist for some time to come, we ought to consider what to desire, and what to aim at, in the case of the very suffering class of governesses.
The physicians have something else to tell us, besides the disproportion of insanity in that class. The propensity to drink is occasionally seen among them; and hence, no doubt, much of the insanity. What is it that incites to drink?—wretchedness. What is the cause of that wretchedness?—There are several causes. These must be understood before the health and morals of the class can be rectified.
Among the commonest items of popular ignorance, are the two ideas that to know a thing is to be able to teach it; and that intercourse with children is a thing which everybody is capable of. Hence arises much of the suffering and destruction of governesses.
As to intercourse with children’s minds,—there are multitudes of parents who are incapable of it. It is even a rare spectacle when the mother who has been the best possible guardian and playmate of her infants is an equally good friend in their childhood and youth. If it is so with parents who have the divine aid of maternal instinct and passion, how can it be with the host of strangers who enter into relations with the children for the sake of bread? What are the chances that, in that multitude, any considerable number can be found who can pass easily into a child’s heart and mind, and be happy there? Again, if we see in actual life that the faculty of developing and instructing inferior minds is wholly separate from that of acquiring, holding, and using knowledge,—the former being also more rare than the latter,—what are the chances in favour of children being well taught and made intelligent by any out of a host of candidates who are examined in regard to their acquirements, but not about their faculty and art of enabling others to learn? Our business now is only with the effect of these mistakes on the health of governesses.
In their class, as in society generally, there are very few who have such sympathy with children as is necessary for passing life with them. Those who have that sympathy generally find a natural exercise for it, and are not likely to take up their objects of affection at random. To all others, a life spent with children only is a terrible penalty. The peculiar requisite organisation being absent, not