A SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD.
The fact is scarcely worth our notice, but now we think of it perhaps we may as well just mention it, that one very often finds the very funniest advertisements are those which are quite clearly meant to be most serious. Here, for instance, is a specimen of the strict scholastic sort, which (nomine mutato) lately edified the readers of a rural weekly print:-
The Duties of Mrs. Stuffem’s Establishment for Young Ladies will be resumed D.V. January 19th, 1860.
The patronage which has been bestowed, and the success which has attended Mrs. Stuffem’s system of Tuition, form for the Parents a guarantee for the improvement and happiness of their children.
The course of education comprises music, singing, drawing, the modern languages, every branch of useful study, pain and ornamental needlework.
Terms, moderate, forwarded on application; also references if desired to the parents of pupils in Great Britain and the Colonies.
At the request of numerous friends, Africans of Colour are not admitted.
This composition is remarkable not less for its omissions than it is for its redundancies. Of the latter, the “D. V.” is a conspicuous example, inasmuch as nothing can be done without God’s will, and to refer to it thus specially is needless and profane. Equally redundant is the mention of the “plain and ornamental needlework,” which of course must be regarded as extremely “useful study,” and would clearly be included if “every branch” thereof were taught.
Coming now to the omissions, we have to ask Mrs. Stuffem for a key to her fourth sentence; which, if taken as a sample of her English composition, does not say much for the way in which “the modern languages” are taught at her establishment. Her Grammar in fact seems to be as “moderate” as her terms, and it bewilders us to guess whether the “parents” or the “pupils” are “in Great Britain and the Colonies;” and whether it be to them, or whom, that she will forward references should they be desired. We are, however, still more puzzled by the words which Mrs. Stuffem uses for a climax, and which point out an omission we should like her to supply. In saying that “at the request of numerous friends” [of whom?] she has n admittance for “Africans of Colour,” she darkly hints at the existence of Africans not coloured, to whom there is no bar to entrance at her school. Where on earth uncoloured Africans are to be found, she does not tell us, and we are driven to our wits’ end to guess about their whereabouts. We have heard of an attempt to scrub the black out of a blackamoor, and if the trial had succeeded we might think uncoloured Africans were some of its results. The experiment, however, as Æsop tells us, failed; nor so far as we can learn, has it ever been repeated. We are therefore in the dark about uncoloured Africans, and it would much relieve our mind if Mrs. Stuffem would enlighten us. Were she to tell where they are visible, we would go and take a sight at them; indeed, we would endeavour, on some colourable grounds, to bring the whitest of them over to make at once a public exhibition of himself. In a country where white blackbirds are thought great curiosities, mints of money might be made by showing a blanched blackamoor, which we fancy that an African without colour would be.
Back to PUNCH’S BOOK OF BRITISH COSTUMES. <<< — >>> Next to Election Colours.
