Her intellect, too, with all its splendor, trained in a
drawing-room, fed on flattery, was tainted and flawed; yet its beams
make the obscurest school-house in New England warmer and lighter to
the little rugged girls who are gathered together on its wooden bench.
They may never through life hear her name, but she is not the less
their benefactress.
The influence has been such, that the aim certainly is, now, in
arranging school instruction for girls, to give them as fair a field
as boys. As yet, indeed, these arrangements are made with little
judgment or reflection; just as the tutors of Lady Jane Grey, and
other distinguished women of her time, taught them Latin and Greek,
because they knew nothing else themselves, so now the improvement in
the education of girls is to be made by giving them young men as
teachers, who only teach what has been taught themselves at college,
while methods and topics need revision for these new subjects, which
could better be made by those who had experienced the same wants.
Women are, often, at the head of these institutions; but they have, as
yet, seldom been thinking women, capable of organizing a new whole for
the wants of the time, and choosing persons to officiate in the
departments.
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