Diary in America, Series One

“Mrs Mandelle’s Address:—

“To the young ladies of the Lancaster Female Academy, at an examination on the 3rd March, 1838.

“Affectionate Pupils:– With many of you this is our final meeting in the relative position of teacher and pupil, and we must part perhaps to meet no more. That this reflection filtrates from my mind to my heart with saddening influence, I need scarce assure you. But Hope, in a voice sweet as ‘the wild strains of the Eolian harp,’ whispers in dulcet accents, ‘we may again meet.’ In youth the impressions of sorrow are fleeting and evanescent as ‘the vapery sail,’ that momentarily o’ershadows the luciferous orb of even, vanishes and leaves her disc untarnished in its lustre: so may it be with you—may the gloom of this moment, like the elemental prototype, be but the precursor of reappearing radiance undimmed by the transitory shadow.

“Happy and bright indeed has been this small portion of your time occupied, not only in the interesting pursuit of science, but in a reciprocation of attentions and sympathies, endeared by that holiest ligament of earthly sensibilities, religion, which so oft has united us in soul and sentiment, as the aspirations of our hearts simultaneously ascended to the mercy-seat of the great Jehovah! The remembrance of emotions like these are ineffaceable by care or sorrow, and only blotted out by the immutable hand of death. These halcyon hours of budding existence are to memory as the oasis of the desert, where we may recline beneath the soothing influence of their umbrage, and quaff in the goblet of retrospection the lucid draught that refreshes for the moment, and is again forgotten. Permit me to solicit, that the immaculate principles of virtue, I have so often and so carefully inculcated, may not be forgotten, but perseveringly cherished and practised. May the divine dictates of reason murmur in harmonious cadence, bewitching as the fabled melody of the musical bells on the trees of the Mahomedan Paradise. She dwells not alone beneath the glittering star, nor is always encircled by the diamond cestus and the jewel’d tiara! indeed not! and the brilliancy emulged from the spangling gems, but make more hideous the dark, black spot enshrined in the effulgence. The traces of her peaceful footsteps are found alike in the dilapidated hovel of the beggared peasant, and the velveted saloon of the coroneted noble; who may then apportion her a home or assign her a clime? In making my acknowledgments for the attentive interest with which you received my instructions; and the respectful regard you manifested in appreciating my advice, it is not as a compliment to your vanity, but a debt due to your politeness and good sense. Long, my beloved pupils, may my precepts and admonitions live in your hearts; and hasten you, in the language of Addison, to commit yourself to the care of Omnipotence, and when the morning calls again to toil, cast all your cares upon him the author of your being, who has conducted you through one stage of existence, and who will always be present to guide and attend your progress through eternity.”

An advertisement of Mr Bonfil’s Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies, after enumerating the various branches of literature to be taught, winds up with the following paragraph:—

“And finally, it will be constantly inculcated, that their education will be completed when they have the power to extend unaided, a spirit of investigation, searching and appreciating truth, without passing the bounds assigned to the human understanding.”

I have now completed this volume, and although I omitted the major portion of my Diary, that I might not trespass too long upon the reader my task is still far from its termination. The most important parts of it—an examination into the American society and their government, and the conclusions to be drawn from the observations already made upon several subjects; in short, the working out of the problem, as it were, is still to be executed. I have not written one line of this work without deliberation and examination. What I have already done has cost me much labour—what I have to do will cost me more. I must, therefore, claim for myself the indulgence of the public, and request that, in justice to the Americans, they will not decide until they have perused the second portion, with which I shall, as speedily as I can, wind up my observations upon the United States and their Institutions.

Note 1. A church-yard with its mementos of mortality is sometimes a fair criterion by which to judge of the degree of the education of those who live near it. In one of the church-yards in Vermont, there is a tomb stone with an inscription which commences as follows: “Paws, reader, Paws.”

Note 2. New York is superior to the other states in this list; but Ohio is not quite equal. I can draw the line no closer.

Note 3. Notwithstanding that Philadelphia is the capital, the state of Pennsylvania is a great dunce.

Note 4. Miss Martineau says: “Though, as a whole, the nation is probably better informed than any other entire nation, it cannot be denied, that their knowledge is far inferior to what their safety and their virtue require.”

Note 5. The master of a school could not manage the gab, they being exceedingly contumacious. Beat them, he dared not; so he hit upon an expedient. He made a very strong decoction of wormwood, and for a slight offence, poured one spoonful down their throats: for a more serious one, he made them take two.

Note 6. Mrs Trollope says: “At sixteen, often much earlier, education ends and money making begins; the idea that more learning is necessary than can be acquired by that time, is generally ridiculed as absolute monkish bigotry to which, if the seniors willed a more prolonged discipline, the juniors would refuse submission. When the money getting begins, leisure ceases, and all the lore which can be acquired afterwards is picked up from novels, magazines, and newspapers.”

Captain Hall also remarks upon this point:– “I speak now from the authority of the Americans themselves. There is the greatest possible difficulty in fixing young men long enough at college. Innumerable devices have been tried with considerable ingenuity to remedy this evil, and the best possible intentions by the professors and other public-spirited persons who are sincerely grieved to see so many incompetent, half-qualified men in almost every corner of the country.”

Captain Hamilton very truly observes:– “Though I have unquestionably met in New York with many most intelligent and accomplished gentlemen, still I think the fact cannot be denied,—that the average of acquirement resulting from education is a good deal lower in this country than in the better circles in England. In all the knowledge which must be taught, and which requires laborious study for its attainment, I should say the Americans are considerably inferior to my countrymen. In that knowledge, on the other hand, which the individual acquires for himself by actual observation, which bears an immediate marketable value and is directly available in the ordinary avocations of life, I do not imagine that the Americans are excelled by any people in the world.”

The End

1

Paragraph from a New York paper. That old, deaf English maiden lady, Miss Martineau, who travelled through some of the states, a few years since, gives a full account of Mr Poindexter’s death; unfortunately for her veracity, the gentleman still lives; but this is about as near the truth as the majority of her statements. The loafing English men and women who visit America, as penny-a-liners, are perfectly understood here, and Jonathan amuses himself whenever he meets them, by imposing upon their credulity the most absurd stories which he can invent, which they swallow whole, go home with their eyes sticking out of their heads with wonder, and print all they have heard for the benefit of John Bull’s calves.

2

The clocks in America—there rendered so famous by Sam Slick—instead of the moral lessons inculcated by the dials in this country, such as “Time flies,” etcetera, teach one more suited to American feeling:—“Time is money!”

3

And in this opinion I find that I am borne out by an American writer, who says—“It is true, indeed, that the American government, which, as first set up, was properly republican—that is, representation in a course of salutary degrees, and with salutary checks upon the popular will, on the powers of legislation, of the executive, and the judiciary,—was assailed at an early period of its history, and has been assailed continuously down to the present time, by a power called democracy, and that this power has been constantly acquiring influence and gaining ascendency in the republic during the term of its history.”—(A Voice from America to England, by an American Gentleman, page 10.)

4

One single proof may be given of the ruinous policy of the Jackson administration in temporising with the credit of the country. To check the export of bullion from our country, the Bank of England had but one remedy, that of rendering money scarce: they contracted their issues, and it became so. The consequence was, that the price of cotton fell forty dollars per bale. The crop of cotton amounted to 1,600,000 bales, which, at forty dollars per bale, was a loss to the southern planters of 64,000,000 of dollars.

5

A curious proof of this system of hoarding, which immediately took place upon the bank stopping payment, was told me by a gentleman from Baltimore. He went into a store to purchase, as he often had done, a canvas shot-bag, and to his surprise was asked three times the former price for it. Upon his expostulating, the vendors told him, that the demand for them by the farmers and other people who brought their produce to market, and who used them to put their specie in, was so great, that they could hardly supply them.

6

“On the whole, I cannot help considering it a mistake to suppose that slavery has been abolished in the Northern States of the Union. It is true, indeed, that in these States the power of compulsory labour no longer exists; and that one human being within their limits can no longer claim property in the thews and sinews of another. But is this all that is implied in the boon of freedom? if the word mean anything, it must mean the enjoyment of equal rights, and the unfettered exercise in each individual of such powers and faculties as God has given. In this true meaning of the word, it may be safely asserted that this poor degraded class are still slaves—they are subject to the most grinding and humiliating of all slaveries, that of universal and unconquerable prejudice. The whip, indeed, has been removed from the back of the negro; but the chains are still upon his limbs, and he bears the brand of degradation on his forehead. What is it but the mere abuse of language to call him free, who is tyrannically deprived of all the motives to exertion which animate other men? The law, in truth, has left him in that most pitiable of all conditions—a masterless slave.”—Hamilton’s Men and Manners in America.

7

Miss Martineau, who is not always wrong, in her remarks upon pauperism in the United States, observes:– “The amount, altogether, is far from commensurate with the charity of the community; and it is to be hoped that the curse of a legal charity will be avoided in a country where it certainly cannot become necessary within any assignable time. I was grieved to see the magnificent Pauper Asylum near Philadelphia, made to accommodate, luxuriously, 1,200 persons; and to have its arrangements pointed out to me, as yielding more comforts to the inmates than the labourer could secure at home by any degree of industry and prudence.”