Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Havergal College Magazine which has owned the dignified dozen, and at least half of their number were uncut, alas, when the writer took them down two years ago. Either the title, The Works of Hannah More, or the extreme respectability of the author, has proved alarming to those whom that lady would have called the young females of the Red River Settlement. Some adventurous spirits have, it is true, explored the gentle hills and vales of Hannah ' s verse, and the tragedies The Inflexible Captive, Percy, and The Fatal Falsehood, show foot-prints, or, rather, finger-prints, of early travellers. The stern warning, however, of Vol. V., page 33, Let not the vulgar read this pensive strain ' has had due ef- fect, and it seems to have crushed any youthful Manitoban desires to study the still more pensive pages of the prose essays. An unslaked thirst for romance, however diluted, has not spared the Stories for Persons in the Mid die Ranks, and the once famous Coelebs in Search of a Wife; but it fell to my lot to thrust the paper-knife for the first time into the dense paragraphs of the author ' s life, with her Strictures an the Modem System of Female Education and several succeeding volumes. For every true book lover there is a hallowed joy in cutting one ' s own pages ' ' — one of the familiarities that may lead to lifer long intimacy, and, in any case, a definite sense of proprietorship. Real friendship of course goes further, in the company of pencil and marginal appreciations and reflections. It is with mingled feelings that one cuts pages that should have seen daylight sixty years ago. Then the Strictures still awoke an echo; Coelebs was yet a classic on the family shelf, and the Sacred Dramas stood in the front rank of books that might be safely presented to a young lady on the more important occasions of her life, sow, the Time machine seems to have whirled us on far more than a century since those weighty sentences were penned and those correct sentiments endorsed by readers who, in an age of limited reading, might be counted by thousands. Coelebs, hard though it is to believe it, ran into six editions in the year the book appeared, and the large fortune enjoyed by Mrs. More in her declining years is yet another testimony to the popular admiration of her works. It is difficult to remind ourselves, in turning over the leaves, that the language and the thoughts are those of one who long survived Jane Austen. The shadow of Dr. Johnson lies heavv on every page. Of the wit of Garrick, the splendour of Burke, the urbane gentleness of Reynolds — all among her friends and cor- respondents — no trace is to be found. Few women enjoyed in their early years more varied and delightful social opportunities; few writers have left twelve volumes more uniform and sedate. Her 24

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Havergal College Magazine the Western world influences which will increase the social diffi- culties at home and which will render the problem well-nigh im- possible of solution. It is at their own peril that the Western nations act if they take to the East a new civilization without Christianity. The Christian education of women in the East is thus a sub- ject both complex and urgent, and it is one which calls for the best thought and study which educated women in the West can give. A conference to consider the problem was held at Oxford early in September last. Addresses were given by the Bishop of Oxford, Professor Cairns, Miss Powell, Miss Richardson, the Rev. W. Temple and others engaged in educational work at home and abroad ; a full report has been published. At the close of the conference a small committee was formed to conserve results and to act as a body of reference. The honorary secretary is Miss de Selincourt, formerly principal of the Lady Muir Training School, Allahabad, and any questions may be sent to her at Annandale, North End Road, Golders Green, London, N.W., England. The aim of the committee is not to form any new organisation or society but to enlist fresh interest in the work of already existing mission boards. Miss de Selincourt will be glad to give details of educational posts that are at present vacant in the East and to explain the a Short Service Scheme by which teachers and others who cannot take up permanent work abroad may give valuable aid for a year or more. Great opportunities for helping the women of India are also open to English women who go out to stay with friends and who have had no technical training, and the interest, sympathy and thought of those who remain at home are no less needed. In this critical moment of the world ' s history the women of the East are appealing to the women of the West, and there is not one of us who may not, if she will, take a share in the response to that appeal. FAMOUS, BUT FORGOTTEN. Twelve neat brown volumes, strong in the binding of sixty years since, stand in dusty leisure on the top shelf of our College library. Inside, an equally neat label proclaims their presentation to the St. John ' s College Ladies ' School Library by Dr. Thorn, the year of the benefaction not being specified, though probably much later than 1853, the date on the title page. Charming steel engravings, on a surface mellowed to the softest creamy brown, and excellent print for the excellent sentiments on every page, have failed, however, to attract the readers of either institution 23

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Havergal College Magazine style was formed by Johnson, her theology by the excellent Bishop Porteous, her outlook by the circumscribed and serious life of an important concern ' a seminary for young ladies, in which she was assisted by four sisters, persistently unmarried, like herself. We think instinctively of another school-room authoress, of equal fortitude amidst the dull routine and long hours of governessing duty, whose spirit laughed at the subjection of body and mind to narrowing formality, and followed Romance to the supreme liter- ary summit. But therein lies the difference of genius from talent, and Hannah More would,. in any case, have disclaimed with horror the title of novelist. Coelebs is entrenched deep behind a subsidi- ary title, Observations on Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals, and to a sermon-reading and select circle of readers it proved a sugar-coated pill, x o pill is ever delicious, but Coelebs is far from unpleasant, and to two generations to whom Mrs. Bar- bauld and Mrs. Trimmer were a long-drawn-out dessert on sleepy Sunday afternoons it may even have been an appetiser. Even by the young ladies of St. John ' s College School, its pages were cut to the four hundred and thirtieth, and the reader of 1913 will find much that is pleasantly suggestive of English life and thought in country homes and vicarages of Evangelical ten- dencies in 1808. True, it is always the school mistress who speaks, thinly disguised beneath the topcoat of the mild Coelebs, but to one not greedy of romance the excellent common-sense and real Christian sentiment have their value. Much is unconsciously hu- morous, from the opening paragraph, in which the hero confesses that the ideal of his youthful dreams has been Mil ton ' s Eve, but, he adds hastily, in her state of innocence. His pious mother seems to have dreaded too rapid disillusionment for her Charles, for in sending him forth, at the age of twenty-four, on his adven- turous quest, she entreats him to bear in mind that the fairest creature is also a fallen creature. Long exhortations follow from both parents, for his father, knowing and approving what he styles Charles ' domestic propensities, adds much counsel and advice. An unimproved and inelegant mind is his chief dread in his prospective daughter-in-law, but the foundation must be solid. You will want a companion; an artist you can hire. It says much for the domestic propensities as well as the courage of Charles, that they survived the opening chapters, which also narrate the death of both parents. Thoroughly depressed and chastened, he is yet determined, and we plunge with him into ten chapters of what may he called domestic survey in the houses of acquaintances and friends. Hut the story thenceforward, as in other lovers ' lives, divides into the days before, and after, he met Lucilla. From the moment the careful Coelebs ascertained that this paragon of 25