THE CONDITION OF GOVERNESSES.

IN a little book which we noticed a fortnight since, it was stated, as the result of a calculation, that a majority of female lunatics in this country is ccmposed of governesses and servants of all- -work. Whether the statement is strictly true or nut, we do Bet know ; but there can he 110 question that the situation of both these classes of persons .is one of severe hardship gene- rally, and even of acute misery in particular. cases ; and perhaps there needs no laragraph for a text to originate, or to justify, a few observations on such a subject. We wish, however, in this article, to direct the attention of the reader in a particular manner to the case of governesses, which is that which strikes us as deserving notice in the highest degree.

There assuredly never was a time when so large a proportion

our females was employed in the duties of tuition as at this moment. Probably there is no family among the middle classes but numbers, either in its own circle or in the circle of its imme- diate at quaintatce, sowe young lady who is or has been filling, or who seeks to fill, the s:tuation of governess : the advertising columns of the newspapers announce no qualifications in the same profusion, reiterate no want with the same inveteracy ; and whoever has, unfortunately, at any time " wanted a governess,' has doubtless had a memorable opportunity of observing how large a section of the female community answers to that name. The public is warranted in placing so remarkable a fact amongst the signs of the times, and in asking what it denotes ? We are sorry to say, we can see nothing in this extraordinary gathering of female teachers, either flattering to the cause of :social happiness, or creditable to the spirit of the age. What we .tssume in this matter is, that out of twenty young ladies who rake situations of this kind, nineteen are driven to the step by a beer necessity suffered in their own persons—a necessity dis- graceful to the state of society which produces it. To explain and defend this assumption, we are bound to show, first, that the situation of a governess is such as to bespeak all the aversion with which we perceive it to be regarded ; and, secondly, that the necessity which compels such numbers of young women to appeal to it as the means of livelihood, is disgraceful, and grows out of certain fundamental errors in the social system. And first of the situation and its duties.

1. Occupations are eligible or otherwise according as the re- wards they secure are in proportion to the labours they impose. These in the case of governesses are not in proportion, or rather they are out of all proportion; for (to omit the question of pecu- niary remuneration) that respect and consideration, more coveted than money by well-educated persons—and which even the com- monest duties are found to yield when dischatged faithfully— rarely fall to the lot of the governess; who, in return fir her hard and wearisome services, is regarded in most families as no better than an upper servant, and is treated with no greater cere- mony. (She is often no better paid.) This treatment is partly ming to the vulgar and illiberal views entertained by those en- gaging the services of a governess, but partly also to the nature of the setvices themselves. It is the misfortune of those who profess many things, that they gain credit for none. Notthatm, cellence may not be attained in different studies, and credith, therefore merited on different scores, (though this indeed hopper rarely,) but as there is a natural presumption that wher:,e sel talent or accomplishment is possessed in an eminent degree't will be made the basis of reputation, so where many professiouil are made it is apt to be believed, not that so many solid acquire meats have been mastered, but that the acquirements professed. are of inferior stamp—that the variety is only an apology for

i the mediocrity. Whether this impression operates, on the who,

with more justice or injustice, it may be difficult to say ; but its' effects are obvious on every hand. While the person of one pm. suit contrives to gain credit and respect for his single accomplith. meat, and is more likely to have merits attributed to him duce than below his due, the person of many professions seldom (4 to be set down as an expert but inferior person, useful in a hos* where children have to be taught, but without claims to consider- ation either on the grounds of talent or of respectability. A go. verness is usually expected, and usually is prepared, to assist is " every branch of a finished education." How can we be sm. prised that a person whose qualification is thus made to consist in universal usefulness, should come to be looked upon as a sort of domestic convenience, and be tasked at all hours for all set- vices ? A lady, who had been a governess in a family of no mean rank, once told us, as a specimen of the preposterous notion entertained with regard to the unlimited nature of a governess's duties, that on entering her situation, when her first day's irk. some task was done, and, the children being put to bed, she hoped at length to snatch an hour for private meditation, she perceived the extent of her mistake by the following pleasing sal. loquy which took place between papa and mamma.

Mamma. "What can she do for us now ?"

Papa. " Let me see—Oh ! why I think she can read for us."

The oppression is great, but evidently results, in part, from the nature of the services professed by the poor governess; which are too miscellaneous not to lead to frequent encroachment. Coin. pare with this, the independence enjoyed by the professor of single accomplishments, whose time is dealt out to his pupils in mm. sured portions not to be infringed—whose rights no less than hit duties are well defined and jealously maintained.

If to the nature of these services, inviting oppression and en. croachtnent, we add the vulgarity and unfeeling conduct so fie. quent in the party contracting for them, we shall be at no loss to perceive, in their full extent, the consequent misery and distress inflicted on the minds of young women of delicacy and susceptibi- lity, who being driven to seek situations of thig sort for the most part through adverse circumstances, and when no other short road to occupation lies open to them, live to have their feelings para- lyzed and their spirits broken, declining suddenly in mind and per- son, from the brightness of youth becoming premature old maids, perhaps (indeed, we have seen it is no probability, but a very painful reality) subjects for lunatic asylums!

Nothing tends so much to induce a low state of the spirits and to unhinge the mind, as a sense of isolation, a sense of being re. moved from one's natural circle, of being disconnected with sur- rounding objects, unsettled where others are fixed, a stranger amongst friends. And all this is felt by the governess; who, even when entertained with tolerable kindness and affability, is oppressed with a perpetual feeling of loneliness. Her heart is still, where it ought to be, at home; and the very exhibition of that domestic happiness from which she is debarred, as it keeps up the sense of her privation, only serves to augment i:s bitter- ness. In the beautiful words of a German ballad- " In eer Heimath wohnt die Liebe,

In der Ileimath wohut die Lust, Uod so bange, sell! no bangs

Klopft rho Ilerz hier in der Brunt."

[Home's the home of love and kiadaeu,

Sweet content inhabits there; Here no kindred heart awaits me, Pining slow with inward care! J

In numerous cases this loneliness is not figurative. Vulgar pride frequently condemns the governess in a family to a state of real solitude, by the monstrous contradiction of regarding her station in life—though qualifying her to be an example for the children—as disqualifying her to be even the companion of the parents; and in cases where a different practice admits the gover- ness to the family circle, it often happens that the same vulgar spirit makes null the privilege, by connecting it with painful dis- tinctions, or, not uncommonly, by the more simple means of offer- ing no attractions to its acceptance. For the instances are nume- rous of' ladies of refined manners awl polished conversation, daughters of decayed gentlemen, or others who have received educations beyond the usual proportion to wealth, being paced as governesses in families as much beneath them in all the qualites of mind and person constituting true gentility, as they are above them in fortune. There are doubtless governesses who do not answer to this description—persons of indifferent attainments and commonplace minds, who undertake such situations on trading principles, and as long as they achieve salaries care little for the identities of love or respect. Of these we do not speak; nor are they, we are persuaded, by any means so numerous a class; for it is not often seen in this country that young women are devoid of tenderness and susceptibility. 2. We consider the necessity which forces so many of our young females from their domestic hearths, to seek a livelihood IS strange !families, as governesses, confidants, companions, and what not, disgraceful to the state of society which creates it, for the following amongst other reasons. It arises generally from the poverty of the parents, or from their pride, or from both together ; and generally it bespeaks as its immediate fore- tunnin,,a gentility, that straining after the bubble entility, with all the practical falsehoods involved in it, which is the vile worm now eating into the vitals of our middle classes. Instead of

resting in the station of life to which his means naturally point, a man must be for ever fretting on the verge of something higher : instead of equalizing his expenses, instead of proportioning the scale of his proceedings to the limits of his fortune, he must spe-

culate on the chances of rising; he must give his children a prospective claim to the gentility he designs for them, by edu- cating them after the standard of another and a higher rank of

society ; and when these measures, as they are certain to do, bring ruin on all the family, and the necessity of individual exer- tion begins to stare them in the face—a trifle once, but now a

source -of harrowing distress—then the sons, beggarly gentlemen steeped in Greek and misery, what can they do ? One only thing

of any social utility—they can retail what they have acquired; they

can become tutors. And the daughters, poor, elegant, miserable ladies, full of accomplishments and calamities, what can they du? Nothing more ; they can become governesses. A more unhappy

fate for a fine girl cannot be conceived. The heart of a young woman is so full of affection, that it easily fixes itself in any soil to which it is removed ; but to be transplanted from place to place, and rudely and suddenly broken off in the growth of its attachments, is as little favourable to the development of its beauties, as a si- milar treatment is to that of any young garden-plant equally tender. Nor can any situation be conceived so calculated in itself to sully the graces of female character, as that of governess ; in- ducing harshness and ill-temper, pedantry and self-sufficiency, and many other features of disposition equally the antagonists of those qualities of modesty, gentleness, softness, which ought never to be dissociated from the name of woman—which even in idea it is painful to dispart.

In addition to these arguments, we boldly hazard the assertion, that more old maids proceed from the ranks of governesses than

from any other class of females ; a fact which, if true, is itself a sufficient reason for regarding their occupation with jealousy and aversion. A governess, like a wet-nurse, is an apology for a mo- ther—and a very poor one, in our opinion. Would to God we might live to see the age when all women became mothers, and all mothers suckled their own offspring, and educated them, and when it would be deemed a disgrace to divide the claims of maternity with hired strangers. Then, too, might our lovely English girls rather qualify themselves to bring up children

of their own than waste their affections on those of thankless employers : the grace and beauty which Nature has lavished

upon them would be blessed with its proper fruits, and not be suffered to be blighted and frost-nipped by the effects of a cold,

pedantic occupation, and the removal from all congenial and sea- sonable pleasures ; they would be the dispensers as well as re- ceivers of life and happiness, instead of being the care-worn objects,

with despoiled charms and blasted prospects—melancholy outcasts from love and sympathy—we too often see them. We fear, indeed, there is much truth in the statement, above referred to, re- specting the fate of many poor governesses ; and we cannot but feel deeply affected when we see the same newspaper advertising, in one part, for their reception into boarding-schools and families, and announcing, in another, their admission into lunatic asylums.

And tracing these calamities, as we do, though to a combination of causes, yet principally to the fully and infatuation of the middle classes, in bringing up their children like so many lords and

ladies, and thus cruelly and shamefully poisoning their future happiness, we cannot too emphatically point the finger of execra-

tion at that besetting sin of the age. To any mother in humble circumstances, about to educate her daughters, who may feel tempted to gratify a foolish vanity by the introduction of some refinement beyond the modesty of her station, we would earnestly $a)—" Think you are laying the first stone of a madhouse."