Governesses' Benevolent Institution First Anniversary Festival
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The toast he was about to propose, he said, had reference to the means by which the end they had in view was to be attained, and to the delicacy with which the helping hand of the society was extended to objects of its sympathy: it was, ‘the health of the Committees of ladies and gentlemen who manage its affairs’. He took the great end and object of this institution to be the recognition, at last, of the claims and merit of a class whose office is in reason and in right high, but which has been made in folly and injustice low. It had been stated by Dr. Goldsmith, who had painful experience of the neglect which this class of instructor endures, that he knew no member of society more useful nor more honourable than the imparter of knowledge; at the same time he knew none who was so generally despised, and whose talents were so ill rewarded. Now, if this were true in general, with what particular force did it apply to those unkind, ungenerous slights which ‘patient merit of the unworthy takes' in the persons of governesses?’
It was very well to say that ‘knowledge is power’, but how often did they forget that it was a source of weakness too? Knowledge had not its right place in society, and he believed that it did not obtain a just recognition and reward for its services anywhere. To take the case of those ladies in comparison with menial servants: they were worse paid than the cook; their salaries would bear poor comparison with the wages of the butler; they would appear but shabbily with the remuneration of the lady's-maid; and they were even lower than those paid to liveried footmen. The power of governesses was acknowledged by the middle-aged lady in a turban – she felt the power of the governess's knowledge in the education of her daughters; gentlemen also felt the power of the governess's knowledge; but nobody thought of the poor fagged knowledge herself, her eyes red with poring over advertisements in search of a new situation; and, after having faithfully accomplished her task in one family, being thrown upon the world, and going forth again among strangers to educate others.
When he first received the prospectus of this institution, and perceived that to a committee of ladies was entrusted the care of considering the cases of distressed governesses and of relieving them with a delicacy suitable to their refined feelings, he began to hope for the improvement of the condition of governesses who were not distressed, and to hope that their position in society would be elevated as it ought to be. He considered that those ladies and gentlemen who engaged in this good work virtually pledged themselves, by their influence and example, to elevate the moral condition of governesses; and from that moment he conceived in that institution a heartfelt interest, and a hope of future benefit, that he felt for very few. He took that to be the great end of the institution, for it would otherwise do but little at the best. They might relieve the physical sufferings of governesses in distress – they might cheer them on the bed of sickness, and soften the asperities of their condition in declining age; but, unless the society exerted its energies to render governesses more respected, it would fall far short of the great end which he conceived it had in view. From first to last he had a confidence that the society would do its duty; and he hoped by its means to see blotted out a national reproach, and that the profession of education would be placed on that honourable footing which in any civilized and Christian land, it ought to hold.