The Examiner was among the greatest Radical newspapers published in England during the early nineteenth century; and its best writer was Albany Fonblanque, whose articles mixed a nimble wit with the most biting and impressive political analysis. In one article from 1827 he addressed the fate of teachers; and for a text of nearly two centuries’ age, it has a remarkable relevance to English society today—apart from its enduring stylistic merit. I reproduce part of the article below.
“A trust is generally accounted honourable in proportion to its importance and the order of the qualities or acquirements requisite for the discharge of it. There is, however, one striking exception to this rule in the instance of instructors of youth, who, especially appointed to communicate the knowledge and accomplishments which may command respect in the persons of their pupils, are in their own denied everything beyond the decencies of a reluctantly accorded civility, and often are refused even those barren observances. The treatment which tutors, governesses, ushers, and the various classes of preceptors, receive in this boasted land of liberality, is a disgrace to the feeling as well as to the understanding of society. Every parent acknowledges that the domestic object of the first importance is the education of his children. In obtaining the services of an individual for this purpose, he takes care to be assured that his morals are good, and his acquirements beyond the common average,—in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, we may add, beyond those which he himself possesses, and on which he sufficiently prides himself. When he has procured such a man as he believes this to be, he treats him with perhaps as much courtesy as his cork-drawer, and shows him less favour than his groom. The mistress of the family pursues the same course with the governess which the master adopts towards the tutor. The governess is acknowledge competent to form the minds and manners of the girls—to make indeed the future women: but of how much more consequence in the household is she who shapes the mistress’s caps, and gives the set to her head-dress—the lady’s maid! …
“All of us regard too lightly those who make a profit of imparting what all of us prize, and what we know entitles us to respect when we possess it. Some carry their neglect or contempt farther than others, but all are in a greater or less degree affected by the vicious standard of consideration common in our country. The instructors of youth serve for low wages; that is a sufficient cause for their being slighted, where money puts its value on every thing and being … The common case is that of desiring and supposing everything respectable in the preceptor, and denying him respect—of procuring an individual to instil virtue and knowledge into the minds of youth, and showing at the same time the practical and immediate example of virtue and knowledge neglected or despised in his person. How can a boy (and boys are shrewd enough) believe that the acquirements, the importance of which is dinned in his ears, are of any value as a means of commanding the respect of the world, when he witnesses the treatment, the abject social lot, of the very man who, as best stored with them, has been appointed his instructor? Will he not naturally ask, How can these things obtain honour for me, which do not command even courtesy for him who is able to communicate them to me?”
Notes in the Margins of the Days 