Books: Lessons in Life

T >> Timothy Titcomb >> Lessons in Life

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I was talking, however, about the right of women to sing bass, and
must go on. It is declared by those who oppose this right that
woman has no natural organs and aptitudes for bass. This is the
strong-point of the enemy, but it amounts to nothing. If woman
fails, apparently, in organs and aptitudes for this part, it only
shows what long years of abuse will accomplish. Let us never
forget in this discussion that woman is only a female man, that
there is no such thing as "sex of soul," and that woman's vocal
organs are built exactly like man's--as much like man's as her
hands and her feet and her head are like his--a little smaller,
perhaps,--that's all. It is a familiar fact, I presume, that the
little colts born of South American dams take to ambling as their
natural step, simply because the men of South America have taught
the fathers and mothers of these colts to amble through uncounted
generations. Now in North America we train horses to trot, and the
consequence is that amblers are scarce, and in most cases have to
be educated to their gait. This is the way in which nature adapts
herself to popular want and popular usage. The large variety of
apples which load our orchards were developed from the insignificant
crab, and the peach was the child of the almond, or the almond of
the peach--I have forgotten which. Now I suppose (with some feeble
doubts about it) that man and woman started exactly together, that
her singing treble better than she does bass results from usage,
and that her singing treble rather than bass was purely a matter of
accident at first. All analogy teaches me that if she had begun on
bass, and the other part had been given to man, we should be hearing
today of Ma'lle Patti, "the charming new baritone," and "the
magnificent basso," Madame Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, while admiring
crowds would toss flowers to Carl Formes, "the unapproachable
soprano," or Mario, "the king of contraltos."

I suppose that those who maintain that woman has no natural organs
and aptitudes for singing bass, would say that she has no natural
organs and aptitudes for boxing and playing at ball. Just because
woman holds her fists the wrong side up, as if she were kneading
bread rather than flesh, it is claimed that she was not made for
the "manly art of self-defence," and from the wholly incompetent
facts that she cannot throw a ball three feet against a common
north-west wind, and is not as fleet as a deer, it is judged that
she has no right to engage in base-ball. But suppose all women had
been accustomed to boxing and playing ball as much as the men have
been; would they not have arrived at corresponding excellence? I
know that as women are now (and they please me exceedingly) they
have not muscle to "hit from the shoulder" with force sufficient
to make them formidable antagonists; and I am aware that they lack
something in the length of limb requisite for the rapid locomotion
of the ball-ground; but they have never had a chance. See what
the washerwomen have done for themselves. They seem to be a
separate race of beings, for they all have large arms, and
shoulders that would do honor to Tom Sayers. I have seen negro
slave women at work in the field, with a muscular development that
would be the envy of a Bowery boy. The washerwoman and the field
slave show what can be done by cultivation. I know that their
style of figure is not quite so attractive as I have seen, and I
know that wherever there is an extraordinary tax upon muscle there
is an extraordinary repression of mind and blunting of the
sensibilities, but it must be remembered that we are talking about
rights, now. I claim and maintain, (I may as well come out with
the whole of it,) that a woman has a right to do any thing she
chooses to do, with perhaps the unimportant exception of becoming
the father of a family.

The truth is that women have never had a fair chance. They can do
any thing they are trained to do. The proper physical culture of
woman, carried on through a competent number of generations, would
develop her beyond all our present conceptions. She would be
likely to arrive at a high condition of muscle and a low condition
of mind, very unlike our present idea of the noblest type of
womanhood; but very possibly our ideals of womanhood are
conventional, or traditional. She has hands, and has a right to
use them; a tongue, and the right to wag it in her own way;
powers corresponding to those of man in all important respects,
and the right to develop and employ them according to her taste
and choice. I deny, to man, the privilege of defining the rights
and duties of woman. A woman is mistress of her own actions and
judge of her own powers and aptitudes; and if any woman thinks
that she can do a man's work better than what society considers
her own, then she has an undeniable right to do it, if she can get
it to do, and is willing to accept the work with the conditions
that attend it.

I am a firm believer in "woman's rights"--especially her right to
do as she pleases. It is possible that, before the law, she is not
in possession of all her rights, but all wrongs in this direction
will be corrected as time progresses. I speak particularly at this
time of her right to sing bass, because it is a representative
right, and covers, as with a lid, a whole chest full of others.
Yet while I claim this right, I confess that I should not care to
see it exercised to any great extent, for I think that treble is,
by all odds, the finer and more attractive part in music. Is it
worth while to exercise the right of singing bass, when it costs a
good deal to get up a voice for it, and when treble comes natural
and easy, and is very much pleasanter to the ear? Bass would be a
bad thing for a lullaby, and could only silence a baby by scaring
it. If I should have committed to me the melodies of the world, I
would care very little about my right to sing those subordinate
parts that gather around them in obedient harmonies. At least, I
think I would, unless some upstart man should deny my right to
sing any thing but melodies. If it were committed to me to sing
like a bird, I would not care, I think, to exercise my right to
roar like a bull. If I can witch the ears and win the hearts of
men and women by doing that which I can do easily and naturally
and well, then I shall do best not to exercise my right to do that
which I can only do difficultly, and unnaturally, and ill.

Woman, in my apprehension, is the mistress, not alone of the
melody of music, but of the melody of life. Whatever it may be
possible to do by cultivation and a long course of development, it
is doubtful whether a woman would ever sing bass well. I am aware
that she has the right, and the organs, but I question whether her
bass would amount to any thing--whether it would be worth singing.
When women talk with me about their right to vote, and their right
to practise law, and their right to engage in any business which
usage has assigned to man, I say "yes--you have all those rights."
I never dispute with them at all. Indeed, you see how I have put
myself forward as the defender of these same rights; yet I should
be sorry to see them exercised by the women I admire and love.
It is all very well to say that the presence of woman at the ballot-box
would purify it, and restrain the manners of the men around it; but
I have seen enough of the world to learn that all human influence
is reciprocal and reactionary. Man and the ballot-box might gain, but
woman would lose, and men and the ballot-box themselves would lose
in the long run. The ballot-box is the bass, and it should be man's
business to sing it, while woman should give him home melody with
which it should harmonize.

In the matter of rights, I suppose that I should not differ
materially with any strong-minded woman; but I have always
observed that the most truly lovable, humble, pure-hearted,
God-fearing and humanity-loving women of my acquaintance, never
say any thing about these rights, and scorn those of their sex
who do. I have never known a woman who was at once satisfied in her
affections and discontented with her woman's lot and her woman's
work. There is a weak place, or a wrong place, or a rotten place,
in the character or nature of every woman who stands and howls
upon the spot where her Creator placed her, and neglects her own
true work and life while claiming the right to do the work and
live the life of man. I will admit all the rights that such a
woman claims--all that I myself possess--if she will let me alone,
and keep her distance from me. She may sing bass, but I do not
wish to hear her. She is repulsive to me. She offends me.

I believe in women. I believe they are the sweetest, purest, most
unselfish, best part of the human race. I have no doubt on this
subject, whatever. They do sing the melody in all human life, as
well as the melody in music. They carry the leading part, at least
in the sense that they are a step in advance of us, all the way in
the journey heavenward. I believe that they cannot move very widely
out of the sphere which they now occupy, and remain as good as they
now are; and I deny that my belief rests upon any sentimentality,
or jealousy, or any other weak or unworthy basis. A man who has
experienced a mother's devotion, a wife's self-sacrificing love,
and a daughter's affection, and is grateful for all, may be weakly
sentimental about some things, but not about women. He would help
every woman he loves to the exercise of all the rights which hold
dignity and happiness for her. He would fight that she might have
those rights, if necessary; but he would rather have her lose her
voice entirely, than to hear her sound a bass note so long as a
demi-semi-quaver.

LESSON VIII.

AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION.

"Keen are the pangs
Advancement often brings. To be secure,
Be humble. To be happy, be content." JAMES HURDIS.

"For not that which men covet most is best;
Nor that thing worst which men do most refuse.
But fittest is that each contented rest
With that they hold." SPENSER.

"Men have different spheres. It is for some to evolve great
moral truths, as the Heavens evolve stars, to guide the sailor on
the sea and the traveller on the desert; and it is for some, like
the sailor and the traveller, simply to be guided."--BEECHER.

A venerable gentleman who once occupied a prominent position in a
leading New England college, was remarking recently upon the
difficulty which he experienced in obtaining servants who would
attend to their duties. He had just dismissed a girl of sixteen,
who was so much "above her business" as to be intolerable. The
girl's father, who was an Englishman, called upon him for an
explanation. The employer told his story, every word of which the
father received without question, and then remarked, with
considerable vehemence: "_It is all owing to those cursed public
schools_." The father retired, and the old professor sat down
and thought about it; and the result of his thinking did not
differ materially from that of the father. It was not, of course,
that there was any thing in the studies pursued which had tended
to unfit the girl for her duties. It was very possible indeed for
the girl to have been a better servant in consequence of her
intelligence. There was nothing in English grammar or the
multiplication table to produce insubordination and discontent.
There was nothing in the whole case that tended to condemn public
schools, as such; but it was the spirit inculcated by the teachers
of public schools, which had spoiled this girl for her place, and
which has spoiled, and is still spoiling, thousands of others.

Let us look for a moment into the influence of such a motto as the
following, written over a school-house door--always before the
eyes of the pupils, and always alluded to by school committees and
visitors who are invited to "make a few remarks":

_"Nothing is impossible to him who wills."_

This abominable lie is placed before a room full of children and
youth, of widely varying capacities, and great diversity of
circumstances. They are called upon to look at it, and believe in
it. Suppose a girl of humble mental abilities and humble
circumstances looks at this motto, and says: "I 'will' be a lady.
I 'will' be independent. I 'will' be subject to no man's or
woman's bidding." Under these circumstances, the girl's father,
who is poor, removes her from school, and tells her that she must
earn her living. Now I ask what kind of a spirit she can carry
into her service, except that of surly and impudent discontent?
She has been associating in school, perhaps, with girls whom she
is to serve in the family she enters. Has she not been made unfit
for her place by the influences of the public school? Have not her
comfort and her happiness been spoiled by those influences? Is her
reluctant service of any value to those who pay her the wages of
her labor?

It is safe, at least, to make the proposition that public schools
are a curse to all the youth whom they unfit for their proper
places in the world. It is the favorite theory of teachers that
every man can make of himself any thing that he really chooses to
make. They resort to this theory to rouse the ambition of their
more sluggish pupils, and thus get more study out of them. I have
known entire schools instructed to aim at the highest places in
society, and the most exalted offices of life. I have known
enthusiastic old fools who made it their principal business to go
from school to school, and talk such stuff to the pupils as would
tend to unfit every one of humble circumstances and slender
possibilities for the life that lay before him. The fact is
persistently ignored, in many of these schools, established
emphatically for the education of the people, that the majority of
the places in this world are subordinate and low places. Every boy
and girl is taught to "be something" in the world, which would be
very well if being "something" were being what God intended they
should be; but when being "something" involves the transformation
of what God intended should be a respectable shoemaker into a very
indifferent and a very slow minister of the Gospel, the harmful
and even the ridiculous character of the instruction becomes
apparent.

There are two classes of evil results attending the inculcation of
these favorite doctrines of the school teachers--first, the
unfitting of men and women for humble places; and, second, the
impulsion of men of feeble power into high places, for the duties
of which they have neither natural nor acquired fitness. There are
no longer any American girls who go out to service in families.
They went into mills from the chamber and the kitchen, but now
they have left the mills, and their places are filled by Scotch
and Irish girls. Why is this? Is it because that among the
American girls there are none of poverty, and of humble powers?
Is it because they are not wanted? Or is it because they have
become unfitted for such services as these, and feel above them?
Is it not because they have become possessed of notions that would
render them uncomfortable in family service, and render any
family they might serve uncomfortable? An American servant, who
good-naturedly accepts her condition, and knows and loves her place,
who is willing to acknowledge that she has a mistress, and who
enters into her department of the family life as a harmonious and
happy member, may exist, but I do not know her. People have ceased
inquiring for American servants. They would like them, generally,
because they are intelligent and Protestant, but they cannot get
them because they are unwilling to accept service, and the
obligations and conditions it imposes. Where all the American girls
are, I do not know. I can remember the time when thrifty farmers,
mechanics, and tradesmen took wives from the kitchens of gentlemen
where they were employed,--good, intelligent, self-respectful women
they were, too--who became modest mistresses of thrifty families
afterward;--but that is all done with now. Under the present mode
of education, nobody is fitted for a low place, and everybody is
taught to look for a high one.

If we go into a school exhibition, our ears are deafened by
declamation addressed to ambition. The boys have sought out from
literature every stirring appeal to effort, and every extravagant
promise of reward. The compositions of the girls are of the same
general tone. We hear of "infinite yearnings," from the lips of
girls who do not know enough to make a pudding, and of being
polished "after the similitude of a palace" from those who do not
comprehend the commonest duties of life. Every thing is on the
high-pressure principle. The boys, all of them, have the general
idea that every thing that is necessary to become great men is to
try for it; and each one supposes it possible for him to become
Governor of the State, or President of the Union. The idea of
being educated to fill a humble office in life is hardly thought
of, and every bumpkin who has a memory sufficient for the words
repeats the stanza:--

"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."

There is a fine ring to this familiar quatrain of Mr. Longfellow,
but it is nothing more than a musical cheat. It sounds like truth,
but it is a lie. The lives of great men all remind us that they
have made their own memory sublime, but they do not assure us at
all that we can leave footprints like theirs behind us. If you do
not believe it, go to the cemetery yonder. There they lie--ten
thousand upturned faces--ten thousand breathless bosoms. There was
a time when fire flashed in those vacant orbits, and warm
ambitions pulsed in those bosoms. Dreams of fame and power once
haunted those hollows skulls. Those little piles of bones that
once were feet ran swiftly and determinedly through forty, fifty,
sixty, seventy years of life; but where are the prints they left?
"He lived--he died--he was buried"--is all that the headstone
tells us. We move among the monuments, we see the sculpture, but
no voice comes to us to say that the sleepers are remembered for
any thing they ever did. Natural affection pays its tribute to its
departed object, a generation passes by, the stone grows gray, and
the man has ceased to be, and is to the world as if he had never
lived. Why is it that no more have left a name behind them? Simply
because they were not endowed by their Maker with the power to do
it, and because the offices of life are mainly humble, requiring
only humble powers for their fulfilment. The cemeteries of one
hundred years hence will be like those of to-day. Of all those now
in the schools of this country, dreaming of fame, not one in
twenty thousand will be heard of then,--not one in twenty thousand
will have left a footprint behind him.

Now I believe that a school, in order to be a good one, should be
one that will fit men and women, in the best way, for the humble
positions that the great mass of them must necessarily occupy in
life. It is not necessary that boys and girls be taught any less
than they are taught now. They should receive more practical
knowledge than they do now, without a doubt, and less of that
which is simply ornamental, but they cannot know too much. An
intelligent gardener is better than a clod-hopper, and an educated
nurse is better than an ignorant one; but if the gardener and the
nurse have been spoiled for their business and their condition, by
the sentiments which they have imbibed with their knowledge, they
are made uncomfortable to themselves, and to those whom they
serve. I do not care how much knowledge a man may have acquired in
school, that school has been a curse to him if its influence has
been to make him unhappy in his place, and to fill him with futile
ambitions.

The country has great reason to lament the effect of the kind of
instruction upon which I have remarked. The universal greed for
office is nothing but an indication of the appetite for
distinction which has been diligently fed from childhood. It is
astonishing to see the rush for office on the occasion of the
change of a State or National Administration. Men will leave quiet
and remunerative employments, and subject themselves to mean
humiliations, simply to get their names into a newspaper, and to
achieve a little official importance and social distinction. This
desire for distinction seems to run through the whole social body,
as a kind of moral scrofula, developing itself in various ways,
according to circumstances and peculiarities of constitution. The
consequence is that politics have become the pursuit of small men,
and we no longer have an opportunity to put the best men into
office. The scramble for place among fools is so great and so
successful, that men of dignity and modesty retire from the field
in disgust. Everybody wants to "be something," and in order to be
something, everybody must leave his proper place in the world, and
assume a position which God never intended he should fill. Look in
upon a State legislature once, and you will find sufficient
illustration of my meaning. Not one man in five of the whole
number possesses the first qualification for making the laws of a
State, and half of them never read the constitution of the
country. I mean no contempt for the good, honest men of whom our
State legislatures are principally composed, but I wish simply to
say that there is nothing in their quality of mind, habits of
thought, intellectual power, or style of pursuits that fits them
for the great and momentous functions of legislation. They are
there, a set of "nobodies," mainly for the purpose of becoming
"somebodies," and not for any object connected with the good of
the State.

Somehow, all the students in all our schools get the idea, that a
man in order to be "somebody" must be in public life. Now think of
the fact that the millions attending school in this country have
in some way acquired this idea, and that only one in every one
thousand of these is either needed in public life, or can win
success there. Let this fact be realized, and it is easy to see
that the nine hundred and ninety-nine will feel that they are
somehow cheated out of their birthright. They desired to be in
public life, and be "somebody," but they are not, and so their
life grows tame and tasteless to them. They are disappointed. The
men solace themselves with a petty justice's commission, or a town
office of some kind, and the women--some of them--talk about
"woman's rights," and make themselves notorious and ridiculous at
public meetings. I think women have rights which they do not at
present enjoy, but I have very little confidence in the motives of
their petticoated champions, who court mobs, delight in notoriety,
and glory in their opportunity to burst away from private life,
and be recognized by the public as "somebodies." I insist on
this:--that private and even obscure life is the normal condition
of the great multitude of men and women in this world; and that,
to serve this private life, public life is instituted. Public life
has no legitimate significance save I as it is related to the
service of private life. It requires peculiar talents and peculiar
education, and brings with it peculiar trials; and the man best
fitted for it would be the last man confidently to assert his fitness
for it.

Thousands seek to become "somebodies" through the avenues of
professional life; and so professional life is full of "nobodies."
The pulpit is crowded with goodish "nobodies"--men who have no
power--no unction--no mission. They strain their brains to write
common-places, and wear themselves out repeating the rant of their
sect and the cant of their schools. The bar is cursed with
"nobodies" as much as the pulpit. The lawyers are few; the
pettifoggers are many. The bar, more than any other medium, is
that through which the ambitious youth of the country seek to
attain political eminence. Thousands go into the study of law, not
so much for the sake of the profession, as for the sake of the
advantages it is supposed to give them for political preferment.
An ambitious boy who has taken it into his head to be "somebody,"
always studies law; and as soon as he is "admitted to the bar" he
is ready to begin his political scheming. Multitudes of lawyers
are a disgrace to their profession, and a curse to their country.
They lack the brains necessary to make them respectable, and the
morals requisite for good neighborhood. They live on quarrels, and
breed them that they may live. They have spoiled themselves for
private life, and they spoil the private life around them. As for
the medical profession, I tremble to think how many enter it
because they have neither piety enough for preaching, nor brains
enough to practice law. When I think of the great army of little
men that is yearly commissioned to go forth into the world with a
case of sharp knives in one hand, and a magazine of drugs in the
other, I heave a sigh for the human race. Especially is all this
lamentable when we remember that it involves the spoiling of
thousands of good farmers and mechanics, to make poor professional
men, while those who would make good professional men are obliged
to attend to the simple duties of life, and submit to preaching
that neither feeds nor stimulates them, and medicine that kills or
fails to cure them.

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