the time and all the powers. Persons who are not Quakers, however, nor bound by the Quaker rule of maintaining the helpless of their own sect, pay less than that pitiful salary; twelve pounds, ten, and even eight. The comparison of such salaries with the wages of servants has become a common theme. My business with the subject now is in view of its effect upon the health of this class of hard workers. What can be the state of nerves of a woman who, by laborious and precarious means, is earning a present subsistence, with no prospect whatever before her at the end of a few years, and no particular relish for the time which lies between. She cannot avoid hearing the dreadful stories that we all hear, every year of our lives, of old governesses, starved, worn out, blind, paralytic, insane, after having maintained relatives, educated nephews and nieces, put themselves out of the way of marriage, resisted temptations of which no one but the desolate can comprehend the force, and fought a noble fight, without receiving crown or tribute. If the testimony of physicians is true as to the existence of intemperance among this class of working nuns, how can we wonder, any more than we should at the same weakness, if it were practicable, within the walls of a convent?
Sir George Stephen pointed out, sixteen years ago, that one of the singular evils of the lot of governesses was the absence of combination, and even of esprit de corps. Servants stand by each other, almost as artisans and operatives do; but the governess is, or was then, all alone and desolate. The anecdotes given by him of the helpless misery of girls worth ten times more than their oppressors in all but wealth, would be scarcely credible, if they were not seriously disclosed as evidence on which legal proceedings had been grounded. Matters have mended since then. Governesses are protected, pensioned, counselled, and aided; and they can insure, and save, and buy annuities to advantage. Various new occupations have been opened to women, and more will open continually, lessening the pressure upon the profession of education. Still, there is misery enough to impel us to inquire what more can be done; and ill-health, in particular, which affords the gravest admonition that there is something yet fearfully wrong.
The profession is understood to preclude marriage in all but a few exceptional cases. I will not go over ground fully treated by Sir George Stephen, but assume that the fact is so; as indeed the observation of any person living in society must pronounce that it is. This enforced celibacy can be got rid of only (or must be got rid of first) by shortening the period of professional work, in the case of young governesses. This can be done only by means of a large increase of salary; and that increased salary again can be had only by raising the quality and lowering the number of governesses. We shall arrive at the same issue in considering every one of the special disadvantages of the occupation. The conclusion is always the same—that there must be far fewer governesses, and of a far better quality. Then the experiment may be fairly tried, whether the whole arrangement is too faulty to last, or whether its advantages are sufficient to afford it a new start, on better terms for all parties.
Meantime, female education is somewhat improving. That is perhaps the chief consideration in the case. A high order of education among women who may have to become governesses will keep out of the profession a multitude who now get a footing in it; and the more highly qualified a woman is for the office of educator, the less she will suffer in it. The main obstacle to the immediate improvement of female education,—the indifference or the grudging reluctance of parents,—is a sore trouble at present; and when fresh instances of close economy in the education of girls, combined with ostentation in other matters, come under our notice, we are apt to doubt whether the day of grace and justice will ever arrive. But it is approaching. With such institutions as the Ladies’ Colleges of London and Edinburgh before us, and while observing the troops of certificated students whom they send forth to educate the rising generation, we cannot rationally doubt that the profession of the governess is about to assume a new aspect. The time must be nearly at an end when parents can save the expense of schooling for their whole batch of daughters, including sons under ten years old, by engaging a young lady on the wages of a nursemaid. When the time comes for the schooling to be paid for in the governess, if not directly for the children, there may and will be fewer governesses employed; but there will be more money spent upon them, and a higher consideration awarded to them. Either that, or the arrangement will expire. Each is only a question of time.
The next point of importance is the opening of a variety of industrial occupations to women, by which the greater number may earn a respectable maintenance more suitably and happily than by attempting to teach what they have never properly learned. The relief to the over-crowded governess class of every draught from their numbers into a fresh employment needs no showing. All encouragement given to the efforts and the industry of any other class of working women benefits the governesses.
There is another resource, of such evident fitness and efficacy, that I wonder more and more that English parents have not long ago adopted it with the vigour they will one day show about it. Wherever we go among parents of the middle class, we find the one gnawing anxiety which abides in their hearts is the dread of their daughters “having to go out as governesses.” “Anything but that!” says the father, when talking confidentially after his day’s work at the office, or the mill, or the counting-house, or in going the rounds of his patients. “Anything but that!” sighs the mother, as she thinks of her own girls placed and treated as she has seen so many. Yet we see, year by year, the dispersion of families of petted darlings, or proud aspirants, whose fathers have died, leaving them penniless. Now a barrister,—now a physician,—now a clergyman,—with a merchant or banker, or country gentleman here and there,—dies in middle life, or in full age, without having had courage to warn his dear ones, or to admit to himself what was