is severe, an education which in any way excites vanity is the very worst preparation for that general and crowded school.”[1]
It would be easy to transcribe many more of these admirable aphorisms, which prove as clearly as if one had seen her in school, that she who wrote them had rare gifts for the work of education. With all this, I do not suppose that Margaret Fuller was a perfect teacher; her health was variable, and her heart was set on something else; she did not accept this as her life-work. The teacher who followed her has told me that she was worshiped by the girls as in her earlier school-days, but was sometimes too sarcastic for the boys; and yet they certainly gave every evidence of attachment when she left them. Outside the school, too, her personal qualities or her exceptional attainments brought on her some of those criticisms from which educated men are not exempt, and which are quite sure to visit highly-educated women. One lady said to her successor, Miss Jacobs, soon after her arrival at the school: “Miss Fuller says she thinks in German; do you believe it?” It was a discourteous question to a new-comer, who would naturally wish to keep clear of the feuds and the claims of her predecessor; but fortunately Miss Jacobs had ready tact, if Miss Fuller had not. “Oh, yes!” she said, “I do not doubt it; I myself dream in Cherokee;” which left her assailant discomfited.
- ↑ Fuller MSS. i. 643-645.
