| Women's Education Home Page |
Colonial Heritage | Female Curriculum | Student Life | Teaching | Religion, Race, Culture | Academies & Seminaries | Clements Library Home Page |
| Inventory of Exhibit Sources | |||||||
Sketch of a Despised Headmaster | This is the last page of a letter written from one student to another after they left boarding school. Its sarcasm indicates that proper manners--manners that required that indelicate subjects "never be mentioned"--could also cover tension and dissatisfaction. The letters are transcribed literally to duplicate punctuation and spelling except when to do so would obscure the meaning. |
| |
| Why Alice what could you have been dreaming about, but to have accepted Mr. Crittenden's invitation. It is not every young lady that he would condescend to honor in that way, and I fear that an unfortunate who is disposed to be a little light and gay" could never arrive at such a happiness.. Oh! what blissful times we had there about the time when so many discoveries come to light. What a "tempest in a teapot!" But, "Oh!, we never mention it." What would not I give, now that I have been torn from under the protecting wings of Pluto and banished [from] those celestial shades forever, for one of Plutos table lectures! How eloquent and instructive they were. [caption] |
|
| Return to Top | |
| Reading Between the Lines | |
Politeness required that conflict and even abuse not be discussed. Yet this student not only discusses it, but illustrates it with 'pointed' allusions. How much weight would you give this document in determining the relationships between headmasters and students? This sketch offers evidence in unexpected ways. Explore the fashions the students are wearing. What do the small hats and shawls indicate? Are they in keeping with the ruffled shirt of the headmaster or stories from other seminaries suggesting that students dressed as fashionably as they could afford? |
|
| Return to Top | |