Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/387

Rh statistics, and she gave it with a liveliness which animated her whole audience. She, too, descended, and was criticised in her turn. In this way the young female teacher is early accustomed to the usual consequences of publicity, and early accustomed also to pay that attention to herself in all respects which is so especially important, for the school-teacher. The outward demeanour, their movements, their gait, &c, all are subjects of observation and attention. Nothing must be allowed in the teacher which disgusts or excites ridicule in the scholar. Great numbers of young teachers are sent hence to the west and south of this vast country, where they are soon engaged by schools or—lovers.

After that I saw Horace Mann, the hopeful, meritorious man of education for the rising generation, and his agreeable young wife at their cottage. I wished to have had some earnest conversation with him on the insufficiency of schools as educational institutions, but I forgot myself in Lydia Maria Child's home and company, until the railroad train was just setting off, and I was then obliged to return to Boston.

That noble and refined woman and gifted authoress lives here on a little farm, not much unlike a Swedish peasant's wife, and not in her proper element. A pretty little Spanish child, one of the many whom Lydia Maria Child had rescued from want, lives here with her, and for her in heartfelt love. Friends surround her with affectionate solicitude. In North America, less than anywhere else, need people be solitary or neglected, unless they deserve to be so; and they who deserve many friends find them also.

During my stay in Boston I have been much interested by the new drawing-school for women, similar to that at Philadelphia, which is about to be established there by a Mr. Whitacker, from London—a man with all the philanthropy of England in his eyes. Many respectable and