parents who thus govern and educate their
children, can find no justification for the practice, until they can
first so alter the course of Nature, as to establish the law, that each
family shall be composed altogether of girls, or shall consist
exclusively of boys!

But these modern refinements had not obtained currency, at the period of
which we are writing; nor was any such nonsense the motive to the
introduction of female teachers. But one of the lessons learned by
observation of the domestic circle, and particularly of the influence of
the mother over her children, was the principle, that a woman can teach
males of a certain age quite as well as a man, and _females much
better_; and that, since the school-teacher stands, for the time in the
place of the parent, a _mistress_ was far more desirable, especially for
the girls, than a _master_. Hence, the latter had exercised his vocation
in the west, but a few years, before he was followed by the former.

New England was the great nursery of this class, as it was of so many
others, transplanted beyond the Alleghenies. Emigration, and the
enticements and casualties of a seafaring life--drawing the men into
their appropriate channels of enterprise and adventure, had there
reduced their number below that of the women--thus remitting many of the
latter, to other than the usual and natural occupations of "the sex."
Matrimony became a remote possibility to large numbers--attention to
household matters gave place to various kinds of light labor--and, since
they were not likely to have progeny of their own to rear, many resorted
to the teaching of children belonging to others. Idleness was a rare
vice; and New England girls--to their honor be it spoken--have seldom
resembled "the lilies of the field," in aught, save the fairness of
their complexions! They have never displayed much squeamishness--about
work: and if they could not benefit the rising generation in a maternal,
were willing to make themselves useful in a tutorial capacity. The
people of that enlightened section, have always possessed the learning
necessary to appreciate, and the philanthropy implied in the wish to
dispel, the benighted ignorance of all other quarters of the world; and
thus a competent number of them have ever been found willing to give up
the comforts of home, for the benefit of the "barbarous west."

The schoolmistress, then, generally came from the "cradle" of
intelligence, as well as "of