Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals | Page 3

those obtained
at the shops; and there was a great delight in gratifying the fancy, by
dressing the dolls, not in Quaker garb, but in all of the most brilliant
colors and stylish shapes worn by the ultra-fashionable.
There were always plenty of books, and besides those in the house
there was the Atheneum Library, which, although not a free library,
was very inexpensive to the shareholders.
There was another very striking difference between that epoch and the
present. The children of that day were taught to value a book and to
take excellent care of it; as an instance it may be mentioned that one
copy of Colburn's "Algebra" was used by eight children in the Mitchell
family, one after the other. The eldest daughter's name was written on
the inside of the cover; seven more names followed in the order of their
ages, as the book descended.
With regard to their reading, the mother examined every book that
came into the house. Of course there were not so many books published
then as now, and the same books were read over and over. Miss
Edgeworth's stories became part of their very lives, and Young's "Night
Thoughts," and the poems of Cowper and Bloomfield were
conspicuous objects on the bookshelves of most houses in those days.
Mr. Mitchell was very apt, while observing the heavens in the evening,
to quote from one or the other of these poets, or from the Bible. "An
undevout astronomer is mad" was one of his favorite quotations.
Among the poems which Maria learned in her childhood, and which
was repeatedly upon her lips all through her life, was, "The spacious
firmament on high." In her latter years if she had a sudden fright which
threatened to take away her senses she would test her mental condition

by repeating that poem; it is needless to say that she always
remembered it, and her nerves instantly relapsed into their natural
condition.
The lives of Maria Mitchell and her numerous brothers and sisters were
passed in simplicity and with an entire absence of anything exciting or
abnormal.
The education of their children is enjoined upon the parents by the
"Discipline," and in those days at least the parents did not give up all
the responsibility in that line to the teachers. In Maria Mitchell's
childhood the children of a family sat around the table in the evenings
and studied their lessons for the next day,--the parents or the older
children assisting the younger if the lessons were too difficult. The
children attended school five days in the week,--six hours in the
day,--and their only vacation was four weeks in the summer, generally
in August.
The idea that children over-studied and injured their health was never
promulgated in that family, nor indeed in that community; it seems to
be a notion of the present half-century.
Maria's first teacher was a lady for whom she always felt the warmest
affection, and in her diary, written in her later years, occurs this
allusion to her:
"I count in my life, outside of family relatives, three aids given me on
my journey; they are prominent to me: the woman who first made the
study-book charming; the man who sent me the first hundred dollars I
ever saw, to buy books with; and another noble woman, through whose
efforts I became the owner of a telescope; and of these, the first was the
greatest."
As a little girl, Maria was not a brilliant scholar; she was shy and slow;
but later, under her father's tuition, she developed very rapidly.
After the close of the war of 1812, when business was resumed and the
town restored to its normal prosperity, Mr. Mitchell taught school,--at

first as master of a public school, and afterwards in a private school of
his own. Maria attended both of these schools.
Mr. Mitchell's pupils speak of him as a most inspiring teacher, and he
always spoke of his experiences in that capacity as very happy.
When her father gave up teaching, Maria was put under the instruction
of Mr. Cyrus Peirce, afterwards principal of the first normal school
started in the United States.
Mr. Peirce took a great interest in Maria, especially in developing her
taste for mathematical study, for which she early showed a remarkable
talent.
The books which she studied at the age of seventeen, as we know by
the date of the notes, were Bridge's "Conic Sections," Hutton's
"Mathematics," and Bowditch's "Navigator." At that time Prof.
Benjamin Peirce had not published his "Explanations of the Navigator
and Almanac," so that Maria was obliged to consult many scientific
books and reports before she could herself construct the astronomical
tables.
Mr. Mitchell, on relinquishing school-teaching, was appointed cashier
of the Pacific Bank; but although he gave up teaching,