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 International
Financial Reporting
A Practical Guide
Eighth edition

Alan Melville
FCA, BSc, Cert. Ed.

Harlow, England • London • New York • Boston • San Francisco • Toronto • Sydney • Dubai • Singapore • Hong Kong
Tokyo • Seoul • Taipei • New Delhi • Cape Town • São Paulo • Mexico City • Madrid • Amsterdam • Munich • Paris • Milan

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 PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED
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Web: www.pearson.com/uk

First published 2008 (print)

Second edition published 2009 (print)
Third edition published 2011 (print)
Fourth edition published 2013 (print and electronic)
Fifth edition published 2015 (print and electronic)
Sixth edition published 2017 (print and electronic)
Seventh edition published 2019 (print and electronic)
Eighth edition published 2022 (print and electronic)

© Pearson Professional Limited 2008, 2011 (print)

© Pearson Education Limited 2013, 2022 (print and electronic)

The right of Alan Melville to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The print publication is protected by copyright. Prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, distribution or
transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, permission should be obtained from
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Pearson Education is not responsible for the content of third-party internet sites.

This publication contains copyright material of the IFRS® Foundation in respect of which all rights are reserved. Reproduced by
Pearson Education Limited with the permission of the IFRS Foundation. No permission granted to third parties to reproduce or
distribute. For full access to IFRS Standards and the work of the IFRS Foundation please visit http://ifrs.org

The International Accounting Standards Board®, the IFRS Foundation, the authors and the publishers do not accept responsi-
bility for any loss caused by acting or refraining from acting in reliance on the material in this publication, whether such loss is
caused by negligence or otherwise.

ISBN: 978-1-292-43942-6 (print)

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 Contents

Preface ix 3 Presentation of financial statements 37

Acknowledgements x Purpose of financial statements 38
List of international standards xi Components of financial statements 38
General features 39
Part 1 Introduction to Financial Reporting Structure and content of financial
statements 41
1 The regulatory framework 3 The statement of financial position 42
The need for regulation 4 The statement of comprehensive
Sources of regulation 4 income 46
Generally accepted accounting practice 6 The statement of changes in equity 51
The International Accounting Standards The notes to the financial statements 53
Board 7 Interim financial reporting 54
The IASB® standard-setting process 9 Management commentary 55
The purpose of accounting standards 10 Making materiality judgements 56
Worldwide use of international Exposure Draft ED/2019/7 58
standards 11 4 Accounting policies, estimates and
First-time adoption of international errors 68
standards 12
Accounting policies 68
The International Sustainability
Accounting estimates 73
Standards Board 14
Prior period errors 73
2 The IASB conceptual framework 17
Purpose and status of the IASB Part 2 Financial Reporting in Practice
Conceptual Framework 18
Objective of general purpose financial 5 Property, plant and equipment 83
reporting 19 Definition of property, plant and
Qualitative characteristics of financial equipment 84
information 21 Recognition of property, plant
Financial statements and the reporting and equipment 85
entity 24 Initial measurement of property, plant
Elements of financial statements 25 and equipment 87
Recognition of the elements of Subsequent measurement of property,
financial statements 27 plant and equipment 88
Measurement of the elements of Depreciation 90
financial statements 28 Disclosure requirements 94
Presentation and disclosure 30 Borrowing costs 95
Concepts of capital and capital Government grants 97
maintenance 30 Investment property 100
Discounting and present value 34 IFRS13 Fair Value Measurement 103

v
Contents

6 Intangible assets 108 Subsequent measurement of financial

Definition of an intangible asset 109 assets 187
Initial recognition and measurement The effective interest method 188
of intangible assets 110 Subsequent measurement of financial
Subsequent measurement of liabilities 190
intangible assets 114 Disclosure requirements 191
Amortisation of intangible assets 116
12 Provisions and events after the
Derecognition 118
Disclosure requirements 118 reporting period 196
Goodwill 119 Recognition of a provision 197
IFRS3 Business Combinations 120 Measurement of a provision 199
Application of the recognition and
7 Impairment of assets 126 measurement rules 200
Indications of impairment 127 Contingent liabilities and contingent
Recoverable amount 128 assets 202
Recognition and measurement of an Disclosure requirements 203
impairment loss 131 Events after the reporting period 204
Cash-generating units 132
Reversal of impairment losses 136 13 Revenue from contracts with
Disclosure requirements 137 customers 210
Purpose and scope of IFRS15 211
8 Non-current assets held for sale The five-step model 211
and discontinued operations 142 Identifying the contract 212
Classification of non-current assets Identifying performance obligations 214
as held for sale 143 Determining the transaction price 215
Measurement of non-current assets Allocating the transaction price 217
held for sale 145 Satisfaction of performance
Presentation of non-current assets obligations 218
held for sale 149 Contract costs 219
Discontinued operations 150 Presentation and disclosure 220
9 Leases 156 Guidance to the application of IFRS15 222
Definition of a lease 157 14 Employee benefits 226
Lease accounting by lessees 158 Short-term employee benefits 227
Lease accounting by lessors 162 Post-employment benefits 229
Sale and leaseback transactions 165 Accounting for defined contribution
10 Inventories 170 plans 229
Inventories 171 Accounting for defined benefit plans 230
Cost of inventories 171 Other long-term employee benefits 235
Cost formulas 173 Termination benefits 235
Net realisable value 176 Share-based payments 236
Disclosures relating to inventories 177
15 Taxation in financial statements 242
11 Financial instruments 181 Current tax 243
Definitions 182 Deferred tax 245
Classification of financial instruments 183 The tax base concept 247
Recognition and measurement 186 IAS12 requirements with regard to
Initial measurement of financial assets deferred tax 252
and liabilities 186 Disclosure requirements 252

vi
 Contents

16 Statement of cash flows 259 Joint arrangements 354

Cash and cash equivalents 260 Disclosure requirements 355
Classification of cash flows by activity 261
21 Related parties and changes in
Interest, dividends and taxes 262
Reporting cash flows from foreign exchange rates 361
operating activities 263 Related parties 362
Disclosures 270 Definition of related party and related
Exposure Draft ED/2019/7 271 party transaction 362
Disclosures required by IAS24 364
17 Financial reporting in Foreign exchange accounting 365
hyperinflationary economies 285 Reporting foreign currency
Historical cost accounting and transactions 366
its weaknesses 286 Translation to a presentation currency 368
Strengths of historical cost accounting 291
Alternatives to historical cost
accounting 292 Part 4 Analysis of Financial Statements
Hyperinflationary economies 293
22 Ratio analysis 375
The restatement of financial
Accounting ratios 376
statements 293
Profitability ratios 377
Disclosures required by IAS29 298
Liquidity ratios 381
Efficiency ratios 383
Part 3 Consolidated Financial Statements Investment ratios 386
Limitations of ratio analysis 393
18 Groups of companies (1) 303 Multivariate ratio analysis 394
Requirement to prepare consolidated
financial statements 304 23 Earnings per share 404
Group statement of financial position Significance of EPS 404
at date of acquisition 305 Calculation of basic EPS 405
Group statement of financial position Shares issued during the accounting
in subsequent years 309 period 407
Partly-owned subsidiaries 312 Bonus issues 409
Preference shares 315 Rights issues 410
Elimination of intra-group balances 317 Calculation of diluted EPS 413
Unrealised profits 318 Presentation and disclosure
Reporting period and accounting requirements 415
policies 319
Disclosure requirements 319 24 Segmental analysis 421
Operating segments 422
19 Groups of companies (2) 328 Reportable segments 422
Group statement of comprehensive Disclosures required by IFRS8 424
income 329
Group statement of changes in equity 329
Subsidiary acquired part way through Part 5 Small and Medium-sized Entities
an accounting period 335
25 The IFRS for SMEs® Standard 433
20 Associates and joint arrangements 345 Small and medium-sized entities 434
Associates and significant influence 346 Concepts and pervasive principles 435
The equity method 347 Financial statement presentation 436
Application of the equity method 347 Statement of financial position 437

vii
Contents

25 The IFRS for SMEs Standard (cont.) Liabilities and equity 443
Statement of comprehensive income Revenue 443
and income statement 437 Government grants 444
Statement of changes in equity and Borrowing costs 444
Statement of income and retained Share-based payment 444
earnings 438 Impairment of assets 444
Statement of cash flows 438 Employee benefits 445
Notes to the financial statements 438 Income tax 445
Consolidated and separate financial Foreign currency translation and
statements 439 Hyperinflation 445
Accounting policies, estimates and Events after the end of the reporting
errors 439 period 445
Financial instruments 440 Related party disclosures 446
Inventories 440 Specialised activities 446
Investments in associates and Transition to the IFRS for SMEs
joint ventures 440 Standard 446
Investment property 441
Property, plant and equipment 441 Part 6 Answers
Intangible assets other than goodwill 442
Business combinations and goodwill 442 Answers to exercises 449
Leases 442
Provisions and contingencies 442 Index 513

viii
 Preface

The purpose of this book is to explain International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS®
Standards) and International Accounting Standards (IAS® Standards) at a level which is
appropriate for students who are undertaking an intermediate course of study in financial
reporting. It is assumed that the reader has already completed an introductory accounting
course and is therefore familiar with the basics of financial accounting. The book has not
been written with any specific syllabus in mind but should be useful to second-year under-
graduates studying for a degree in accounting and finance and to those who are preparing
for the examinations of the professional accounting bodies.
IFRS Standards and IAS Standards (referred to in this book as "international standards")
have gained widespread acceptance around the world and most accountancy students are
now required to become familiar with them. The problem is that the standards and their
accompanying documentation occupy over 4,000 pages of fine print and much of this
content is highly technical and difficult to understand. What is needed is a textbook which
explains each standard as clearly and concisely as possible and then provides students with
plenty of worked examples and exercises. This book tries to satisfy that need.
The standards are of international application but (for the sake of convenience) most of
the monetary amounts referred to in the worked examples and exercises in this book are
denominated in £s. Other than this, the book contains very few UK-specific references and
should be relevant in any country which has adopted international standards.
Each chapter of this book concludes with a set of exercises which test the reader's grasp
of the topics introduced in that chapter. Some of these exercises are drawn from the past
examination papers of professional accounting bodies. Solutions to most of the exercises
are located at the back of the book but solutions to those exercises which are marked with
an asterisk (*) are intended for lecturers' use and are provided on a supporting website.
This eighth edition is in accordance with all international standards and amendments to
standards issued as at 1 January 2022.
Alan Melville
February 2022

ix
 Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the IFRS® Foundation for permission to use extracts from various
IASB® standards. This publication contains copyright material of the IFRS® Foundation in
respect of which all rights are reserved. Reproduced by Pearson Education Limited with the
permission of the IFRS Foundation. No permission granted to third parties to reproduce or
distribute. For full access to IFRS Standards and the work of the IFRS Foundation, please
visit http://ifrs.org.
The International Accounting Standards Board®, the IFRS Foundation, the authors and the
publishers do not accept responsibility for any loss caused by acting or refraining from
acting in reliance on the material in this publication, whether such loss is caused by negli-
gence or otherwise.
I would also like to thank the following accounting bodies for granting me permission to
use their past examination questions:
4 Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)
4 Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA)
4 Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT).
I must emphasise that the answers provided to these questions are entirely my own and are
not the responsibility of the accounting body concerned. I would also like to point out that
the questions which are printed in this textbook have been amended in some cases so as to
reflect changes in accounting standards which have occurred since those questions were
originally published by the accounting body concerned.
Please note that, unless material is specifically cited with a source, any company names
used within this text have been created by me and are intended to be fictitious.
Alan Melville
February 2022

x
 List of international standards

A full list of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS® Standards) and the
International Accounting Standards (IAS® Standards) which are in force at the time of
writing this book is given below. Standards missing from the list have been withdrawn.
Alongside each standard is a cross-reference to the relevant chapter of the book.
It is important to appreciate that new or modified standards are issued fairly often. The
reader who wishes to keep up-to-date is advised to consult the website of the International
Accounting Standards Board (IASB®) at www.ifrs.org.

International Financial Reporting Standards Chapter

IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards 1
IFRS 2 Share-based Payment 14
IFRS 3 Business Combinations 6, 18
IFRS 5 Non-current Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations 8
IFRS 6 Exploration for and Evaluation of Mineral Resources –
IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures 11
IFRS 8 Operating Segments 24
IFRS 9 Financial Instruments 11
IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements 18, 19
IFRS 11 Joint Arrangements 20
IFRS 12 Disclosure of Interests in Other Entities 18, 20
IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement 5
IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts –
IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers 13
IFRS 16 Leases 9
IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts –
IFRS for Small and Medium-sized Entities 25
SMEs
International Accounting Standards
IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements 3
IAS 2 Inventories 10
IAS 7 Statement of Cash Flows 16
IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors 4

xi
List of International Standards

IAS 10 Events after the Reporting Period 12

IAS 12 Income Taxes 15
IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment 5
IAS 19 Employee Benefits 14
IAS 20 Accounting for Government Grants and Disclosure of Government 5
Assistance
IAS 21 The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates 21
IAS 23 Borrowing Costs 5
IAS 24 Related Party Disclosures 21
IAS 26 Accounting and Reporting by Retirement Benefit Plans –
IAS 27 Separate Financial Statements 18
IAS 28 Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures 20
IAS 29 Financial Reporting in Hyperinflationary Economies 17
IAS 32 Financial Instruments: Presentation 11
IAS 33 Earnings per Share 23
IAS 34 Interim Financial Reporting 3
IAS 36 Impairment of Assets 7
IAS 37 Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets 12
IAS 38 Intangible Assets 6
IAS 40 Investment Property 5
IAS 41 Agriculture –
It should be noted that some of these standards are beyond the scope of this book and are
considered no further here. These are IFRS6, IFRS14, IFRS17, IAS26 and IAS41.
As well as the international standards, three further IASB documents (none of which are
standards) are dealt with in this book. These are:
(a) the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (see Chapter 2) which sets out a
number of concepts that underlie financial reporting and which is referred to by the
IASB during the development of new and amended standards
(b) IFRS Practice Statement 1 Management Commentary, which provides a broad, non-
binding framework for the presentation of a management commentary to accompany a
set of financial statements (see Chapter 3)
(c) IFRS Practice Statement 2 Making Materiality Judgements, which provides guidance
on the making of materiality judgements when preparing general purpose financial
statements (see Chapter 3).

xii
Part 1

INTRODUCTION TO FINANCIAL
REPORTING
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
unfortunate habit he had acquired of openly bewailing her loss,
“clouded with gloom the first years of their married life.” The patient
Mrs. Taylor became in time so deeply interested in the object of her
husband’s devotion that she opened a correspondence with Miss
Seward,—who was the champion letter-writer of England,—
repeatedly sought to make her acquaintance, and “with melancholy
enthusiasm was induced to invest her with all the charms
imagination could devise, or which had been lavished upon her by
description.”
This state of affairs lasted thirty years, at the end of which time
Colonel Taylor formed the desperate resolution of going to Lichfield,
and seeing his beloved one again. He went, he handed the parlour-
maid a prosaic card; and while Miss Seward—a stoutish, middle-
aged, lame lady—was adjusting her cap and kerchief, he strode into
the hall, cast one impassioned glance up the stairway, and rapidly
left the house. When asked by his wife why he had not stayed, he
answered solemnly: “The gratification must have been followed by
pain and regret that would have punished the temerity of the attempt.
I had no sooner entered the house than I became sensible of the
perilous state of my feelings, and fled with precipitation.”
And the Swan was fifty-two! Well may we sigh over the days when
the Literary Lady not only was petted and praised, not only was the
bulwark of Church and State; but when she accomplished the
impossible, and kindled in man’s inconstant heart an
inextinguishable flame.
 THE CHILD
I was not initiated into any rudiments ’till near four years of age.—
John Evelyn.
The courage of mothers is proverbial. There is no danger which they
will not brave in behalf of their offspring. But I have always thought
that, for sheer foolhardiness, no one ever approached the English
lady who asked Dr. Johnson to read her young daughter’s translation
from Horace. He did read it, because the gods provided no escape;
and he told his experience to Miss Reynolds, who said soothingly,
“And how was it, Sir?” “Why, very well for a young Miss’s verses,”
was the contemptuous reply. “That is to say, as compared with
excellence, nothing; but very well for the person who wrote them. I
am vexed at being shown verses in that manner.”
The fashion of focussing attention upon children had not in Dr.
Johnson’s day assumed the fell proportions which, a few years later,
practically extinguished childhood. It is true that he objected to Mr.
Bennet Langton’s connubial felicity, because the children were “too
much about”; and that he betrayed an unworthy impatience when the
ten little Langtons recited fables, or said their alphabets in Hebrew
for his delectation. It is true also that he answered with pardonable
rudeness when asked what was the best way to begin a little boy’s
education. He said it mattered no more how it was begun, that is,
what the child was taught first, than it mattered which of his little legs
he first thrust into his breeches,—a callous speech, painful to
parents’ ears. Dr. Johnson had been dead four years when Mrs.
Hartley, daughter of Dr. David Hartley of Bath, wrote to Sir William
Pepys:—
“Education is the rage of the times. Everybody tries to make their
children more wonderful than any children of their acquaintance. The
poor little things are so crammed with knowledge that there is scant
time for them to obtain by exercise, and play, and vacancy of mind,
that strength of body which is much more necessary in childhood
than learning.”
I am glad this letter went to Sir William, who was himself determined
that his children should not, at any rate, be less wonderful than other
people’s bantlings. When his eldest son had reached the mature age
of six, we find him writing to Miss Hannah More and Mrs. Chapone,
asking what books he shall give the poor infant to read, and
explaining to these august ladies his own theories of education. Mrs.
Chapone, with an enthusiasm worthy of Mrs. Blimber, replies that
she sympathizes with the rare delight it must be to him to teach little
William Latin; and that she feels jealous for the younger children,
who, being yet in the nursery, are denied their brother’s privileges.
When the boy is ten, Sir William reads to him “The Faerie Queene,”
and finds that he grasps “the beauty of the description and the force
of the allegory.” At eleven he has “an animated relish for Ovid and
Virgil.” And the more the happy father has to tell about the precocity
of his child, the more Mrs. Chapone stimulates and confounds him
with tales of other children’s prowess. When she hears that the
“sweet Boy” is to be introduced, at five, to the English classics, she
writes at once about a little girl, who, when “rather younger than he
is” (the bitterness of that!), “had several parts of Milton by heart.”
These “she understood so well as to apply to her Mother the speech
of the Elder Brother in ‘Comus,’ when she saw her uneasy for want
of a letter from the Dean; and began of her own accord with
‘Peace, Mother, be not over exquisite
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils’”;—
advice which would have exasperated a normal parent to the boxing
point.
There were few normal parents left, however, at this period, to stem
the tide of infantile precocity. Child-study was dawning as a new and
fascinating pursuit upon the English world; and the babes of Britain
responded nobly to the demands made upon their incapacity. Miss
Anna Seward lisped Milton at three, “recited poetical passages, with
eyes brimming with delight,” at five, and versified her favourite
psalms at nine. Her father, who viewed these alarming symptoms
with delight, was so ill-advised as to offer her, when she was ten, a
whole half-crown, if she would write a poem on Spring; whereupon
she “swiftly penned” twenty-five lines, which have been preserved to
an ungrateful world, and which shadow forth the painful prolixity of
future days. At four years of age, little Hannah More was already
composing verses with ominous ease. At five, she “struck mute” the
respected clergyman of the parish by her exhaustive knowledge of
the catechism. At eight, we are told her talents “were of such a
manifestly superior order that her father did not scruple to combine
with the study of Latin some elementary instruction in mathematics;
a fact which her readers might very naturally infer from the clear and
logical cast of her argumentative writings.”
It is not altogether easy to trace the connection between Miss More’s
early sums and her argumentative writings; but, as an illustration of
her logical mind, I may venture to quote a “characteristic” anecdote,
reverently told by her biographer, Mr. Thompson. A young lady,
whose sketches showed an unusual degree of talent, was visiting in
Bristol; and her work was warmly admired by Miss Mary, Miss Sally,
Miss Elizabeth, and Miss Patty More. Hannah alone withheld all
word of commendation, sitting in stony silence whenever the
drawings were produced; until one day she found the artist hard at
work, putting a new binding on a petticoat. Then, “fixing her brilliant
eyes with an expression of entire approbation upon the girl, she said:
‘Now, my dear, that I find you can employ yourself usefully, I will no
longer forbear to express my admiration of your drawings.’”
Only an early familiarity with the multiplication table could have made
so ruthless a logician.
If Dr. Johnson, being childless, found other people’s children in his
way, how fared the bachelors and spinsters who, as time went on,
were confronted by a host of infant prodigies; who heard little Anna
Letitia Aikin—afterwards Mrs. Barbauld—read “as well as most
women” at two and a half years of age; and little Anna Maria Porter
declaim Shakespeare “with precision of emphasis and firmness of
voice” at five; and little Alphonso Hayley recite a Greek ode at six.
We wonder if anybody ever went twice to homes that harboured
childhood; and we sympathize with Miss Ferrier’s bitterness of soul,
when she describes a family dinner at which Eliza’s sampler and
Alexander’s copy-book are handed round to the guests, and Anthony
stands up and repeats “My name is Norval” from beginning to end,
and William Pitt is prevailed upon to sing the whole of “God save the
King.” It was also a pleasant fashion of the time to write eulogies on
one’s kith and kin. Sisters celebrated their brothers’ talents in
affectionate verse, and fathers confided to the world what marvellous
children they had. Even Dr. Burney, a man of sense, poetizes thus
on his daughter Susan:—
Nor did her intellectual powers require
The usual aid of labour to inspire
Her soul with prudence, wisdom, and a taste
Unerring in refinement, sound and chaste.
This was fortunate for Susan, as most young people of the period
were compelled to labour hard. There was a ghastly pretence on the
part of parents that children loved their tasks, and that to keep them
employed was to keep them happy. Sir William Pepys persuaded
himself without much difficulty that little William, who had weak eyes
and nervous headaches, relished Ovid and Virgil. A wonderful and
terrible letter written in 1786 by the Baroness de Bode, an
Englishwoman married to a German and living at Deux-Ponts, lays
bare the process by which ordinary children were converted into the
required miracles of precocity. Her eldest boys, aged eight and nine,
appear to have been the principal victims. The business of their tutor
was to see that they were “fully employed,” and this is an account of
their day.
“In their walks he [the tutor] teaches them natural history and botany,
not dryly as a task, but practically, which amuses them very much. In
their hours of study come drawing, writing, reading, and summing.
Their lesson in writing consists of a theme which they are to translate
into three languages, and sometimes into Latin, for they learn that a
little also. The boys learn Latin as a recreation, and not as a task, as
is the custom in England. Perhaps one or two hours a day is at most
all that is given to that study. ’Tis certainly not so dry a study, when
learnt like modern languages. We have bought them the whole of the
Classical Authors, so that they can instruct themselves if they will;
between ninety and a hundred volumes in large octavo. You would
be surprised,—even Charles Auguste, who is only five, reads
German well, and French tolerably. They all write very good hands,
both in Roman and German texts. Clem and Harry shall write you a
letter in English, and send you a specimen of their drawing. Harry
(the second) writes musick, too. He is a charming boy, improves very
much in all his studies, plays very prettily indeed upon the
harpsichord, and plays, too, all tunes by ear. Clem will, I think, play
well on the violin; but ’tis more difficult in the beginning than the
harpsichord. He is at this moment taking his lesson, the master
accompanying him on the pianoforte; and when Henry plays that, the
master accompanies on the violin, which forms them both, and
pleases them at the same time. In the evening their tutor generally
recounts to them very minutely some anecdote from history, which
imprints it on the memory, amuses them, and hurts no eyes.”
There is nothing like it on record except the rule of life which
Frederick William the First drew up for little Prince Fritz, when that
unfortunate child was nine years old, and which disposed of his day,
hour by hour, and minute by minute. But then Frederick William—a
truth-teller if a tyrant—made no idle pretence of pleasing and
amusing his son. The unpardonable thing about the Baroness de
Bode is her smiling assurance that one or two hours of Latin a day
afforded a pleasant pastime for children of eight and nine.
This was, however, the accepted theory of education. It is faithfully
reflected in all the letters and literature of the time. When Miss
More’s redoubtable “Cœlebs” asks Lucilla Stanley’s little sister why
she is crowned with woodbine, the child replies: “Oh, sir, it is
because it is my birthday. I am eight years old to-day. I gave up all
my gilt books with pictures this day twelvemonth; and to-day I give
up all my story-books, and I am now going to read such books as
men and women read.” Whereupon the little girl’s father—that model
father whose wisdom flowers into many chapters of counsel—
explains that he makes the renouncing of baby books a kind of
epoch in his daughters’ lives; and that by thus distinctly marking the
period, he wards off any return to the immature pleasures of
childhood. “We have in our domestic plan several of these artificial
divisions of life. These little celebrations are eras that we use as
marking-posts from which we set out on some new course.”
Yet the “gilt books,” so ruthlessly discarded at eight years of age,
were not all of an infantile character. For half a century these famous
little volumes, bound in Dutch gilt paper—whence their name—found
their way into every English nursery, and provided amusement and
instruction for every English child. They varied from the “histories” of
Goody Two-Shoes and Miss Sally Spellwell to the “histories” of Tom
Jones and Clarissa Harlowe, “abridged for the amusement of youth”;
and from “The Seven Champions of Christendom” to “The First
Principles of Religion, and the Existence of a Deity; Explained in a
Series of Conversations, Adapted to the Capacity of the Infant Mind.”
The capacity of the infant mind at the close of the eighteenth century
must have been something very different from the capacity of the
infant mind to-day. In a gilt-book dialogue (1792) I find a father
asking his tiny son: “Dick, have you got ten lines of Ovid by heart?”
“Yes, Papa, and I’ve wrote my exercise.”
“Very well, then, you shall ride with me. The boy who does a little at
seven years old, will do a great deal when he is fourteen.”
This was poor encouragement for Dick, who had already tasted the
sweets of application. It was better worth while for Miss Sally
Spellwell to reach the perfection which her name implies, for she
was adopted by a rich old lady with a marriageable son,—“a young
Gentleman of such purity of Morals and good Understanding as is
not everywhere to be found.” In the breast of this paragon “strange
emotions arise” at sight of the well-informed orphan; his mother, who
sets a proper value on orthography, gives her full consent to their
union; and we are swept from the contemplation of samplers and
hornbooks to the triumphant conclusion: “Miss Sally Spellwell now
rides in her coach and six.” Then follows the unmistakable moral:—
If Virtue, Learning, Goodness are your Aim,
Each pretty Miss may hope to do the same;
an anticipation which must have spurred many a female child to
diligence. There was no ill-advised questioning of values in our
great-grandmothers’ day to disturb this point of view. As the excellent
Mrs. West observed in her “Letters to a young Lady,” a book
sanctioned by bishops, and dedicated to the Queen: “We
unquestionably were created to be the wedded mates of man.
Nature intended that man should sue, and woman coyly yield.”
The most appalling thing about the precocious young people of this
period was the ease with which they slipped into print. Publishers
were not then the adamantine race whose province it is now to blight
the hopes of youth. They beamed with benevolence when the first
fruits of genius were confided to their hands. Bishop Thirlwall’s first
fruits, his “Primitiæ,” were published when he was eleven years old,
with a preface telling the public what a wonderful boy little Connop
was;—how he studied Latin at three, and read Greek with ease and
fluency at four, and wrote with distinction at seven. It is true that the
parent Thirlwall appears to have paid the costs, to have launched his
son’s “slender bark” upon seas which proved to be stormless. It is
true also that the bishop suffered acutely in later years from this
youthful production, and destroyed every copy he could find. But
there was no proud and wealthy father to back young Richard
Polwhele, who managed, when he was a schoolboy in Cornwall, to
get his first volume of verse published anonymously. It was called
“The Fate of Llewellyn,” and was consistently bad, though no worse,
on the whole, than his maturer efforts. The title-page stated modestly
that the writer was “a young gentleman of Truro School”; whereupon
an ill-disposed critic in the “Monthly Review” intimated that the
master of Truro School would do well to keep his young gentlemen
out of print. Dr. Cardew, the said master, retorted hotly that the book
had been published without his knowledge, and evinced a lack of
appreciation, which makes us fear that his talented pupil had a bad
half-hour at his hands.
Miss Anna Maria Porter—she who delighted “critical audiences” by
reciting Shakespeare at five—published her “Artless Tales” at fifteen;
and Mrs. Hemans was younger still when her “Blossoms of Spring”
bloomed sweetly upon English soil. Some of the “Blossoms” had
been written before she was ten. The volume was a “fashionable
quarto,” was dedicated to that hardy annual, the Prince Regent, and
appears to have been read by adults. It is recorded that an unkind
notice sent the little girl crying to bed; but as her “England and Spain;
or Valour and Patriotism” was published nine months later, and as at
eighteen she “beamed forth with a strength and brilliancy that must
have shamed her reviewer,” we cannot feel that her poetic
development was very seriously retarded.
And what of the marvellous children whose subsequent histories
have been lost to the world? What of the two young prodigies of
Lichfield, “Aonian flowers of early beauty and intelligence,” who
startled Miss Seward and her friends by their “shining poetic talents,”
and then lapsed into restful obscurity? What of the wonderful little girl
(ten years old) whom Miss Burney saw at Tunbridge Wells; who
sang “like an angel,” conversed like “an informed, cultivated, and
sagacious woman,” played, danced, acted with all the grace of a
comédienne, wept tears of emotion without disfiguring her pretty
face, and, when asked if she read the novels of the day (what a
question!), replied with a sigh: “But too often! I wish I did not.” Miss
Burney and Mrs. Thrale were so impressed—as well they might be—
by this little Selina Birch, that they speculated long and fondly upon
the destiny reserved for one who so easily eclipsed the other
miraculous children of this highly miraculous age.
“Doubtful as it is whether we shall ever see the sweet Syren again,”
writes Miss Burney, “nothing, as Mrs. Thrale said to her” (this, too,
was well advised), “can be more certain than that we shall hear of
her again, let her go whither she will. Charmed as we all were, we
agreed that to have the care of her would be distraction. ‘She seems
the girl in the world,’ Mrs. Thrale wisely said, ‘to attain the highest
reach of human perfection as a man’s mistress. As such she would
be a second Cleopatra, and have the world at her command.’
“Poor thing! I hope to Heaven she will escape such sovereignty and
such honours!”
She did escape scot-free. Whoever married—let us hope he married
—Miss Birch, was no Mark Antony to draw fame to her feet. His very
name is unknown to the world. Perhaps, as “Mrs.—Something—
Rogers,” she illustrated in her respectable middle age that beneficent
process by which Nature frustrates the educator, and converts the
infant Cleopatra or the infant Hypatia into the rotund matron, of
whom she stands permanently in need.
 THE EDUCATOR
The Schoolmaster is abroad.—Lord Brougham.
It is recorded that Boswell once said to Dr. Johnson, “If you had had
children, would you have taught them anything?” and that Dr.
Johnson, out of the fulness of his wisdom, made reply: “I hope that I
should have willingly lived on bread and water to obtain instruction
for them; but I would not have set their future friendship to hazard for
the sake of thrusting into their heads knowledge of things for which
they might have neither taste nor necessity. You teach your
daughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder, when you have
done it, that they do not delight in your company.”
It is the irony of circumstance that Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb
should have been childless, for they were the two eminent
Englishmen who, for the best part of a century, respected the
independence of childhood. They were the two eminent Englishmen
who could have been trusted to let their children alone. Lamb was
nine years old when Dr. Johnson died. He was twenty-seven when
he hurled his impotent anathemas at the heads of “the cursed
Barbauld crew,” “blights and blasts of all that is human in man and
child.” By that time the educator’s hand lay heavy on schoolroom
and nursery. In France, Rousseau and Mme. de Genlis had
succeeded in interesting parents so profoundly in their children that
French babies led a vie de parade. Their toilets and their meals were
as open to the public as were the toilets and the meals of royalty.
Their bassinettes appeared in salons, and in private boxes at the
playhouse; and it was an inspiring sight to behold a French mother
fulfilling her sacred office while she enjoyed the spectacle on the
stage. In England, the Edgeworths and Mr. Day had projected a
system of education which isolated children from common currents
of life, placed them at variance with the accepted usages of society,
and denied them that wholesome neglect which is an important
factor in self-development. The Edgeworthian child became the pivot
of the household, which revolved warily around him, instructing him
whenever it had the ghost of a chance, and guarding him from the
four winds of heaven. He was not permitted to remain ignorant upon
any subject, however remote from his requirements; but all
information came filtered through the parental mind, so that the one
thing he never knew was the world of childish beliefs and
happenings. Intercourse with servants was prohibited; and it is
pleasant to record that Miss Edgeworth found even Mrs. Barbauld a
dangerous guide, because little Charles of the “Early Lessons” asks
his nurse to dress him in the mornings. Such a personal appeal,
showing that Charles was on speaking terms with the domestics,
was something which, in Miss Edgeworth’s opinion, no child should
ever read; and she praises the solicitude of a mother who blotted out
this, and all similar passages, before confiding the book to her infant
son. He might—who knows?—have been so far corrupted as to ask
his own nurse to button him up the next day.
Another parent, still more highly commended, found something to
erase in all her children’s books; and Miss Edgeworth describes with
grave complacency this pathetic little library, scored, blotted, and
mutilated, before being placed on the nursery shelves. The volumes
were, she admits, hopelessly disfigured; “but shall the education of a
family be sacrificed to the beauty of a page? Few books can safely
be given to children without the previous use of the pen, the pencil,
and the scissors. These, in their corrected state, have sometimes a
few words erased, sometimes half a page. Sometimes many pages
are cut out.”
Even now one feels a pang of pity for the little children who, more
than a hundred years ago, were stopped midway in a story by the
absence of half a dozen pages. Even now one wonders how much
furtive curiosity was awakened by this process of elimination. To
hover perpetually on the brink of the concealed and the forbidden
does not seem a wholesome situation; and a careful perusal of that
condemned classic, “Bluebeard,” might have awakened this
excellent mother to the risks she ran. There can be no heavier
handicap to any child than a superhumanly wise and watchful
custodian, whether the custody be parental, or relegated to some
phœnix of a tutor like Mr. Barlow, or that cock-sure experimentalist
who mounts guard over “Émile,” teaching him with elaborate artifice
the simplest things of life. We know how Tommy Merton fell from
grace when separated from Mr. Barlow; but what would have
become of Émile if “Jean Jacques” had providentially broken his
neck? What would have become of little Caroline and Mary in Mary
Wollstonecraft’s “Original Stories,” if Mrs. Mason—who is Mr. Barlow
in petticoats—had ceased for a short time “regulating the affections
and forming the minds” of her helpless charges? All these young
people are so scrutinized, directed, and controlled, that their
personal responsibility has been minimized to the danger point. In
the name of nature, in the name of democracy, in the name of
morality, they are pushed aside from the blessed fellowship of
childhood, and from the beaten paths of life.
That Mary Wollstonecraft should have written the most priggish little
book of her day is one of those pleasant ironies which relieves the
tenseness of our pity for her fate. Its publication is the only incident
of her life which permits the shadow of a smile; and even here our
amusement is tempered by sympathy for the poor innocents who
were compelled to read the “Original Stories,” and to whom even
Blake’s charming illustrations must have brought scant relief. The
plan of the work is one common to most juvenile fiction of the period.
Caroline and Mary, being motherless, are placed under the care of
Mrs. Mason, a lady of obtrusive wisdom and goodness, who
shadows their infant lives, moralizes over every insignificant episode,
and praises herself with honest assiduity. If Caroline is afraid of
thunderstorms, Mrs. Mason explains that she fears no tempest,
because “a mind is never truly great until the love of virtue
overcomes the fear of death.” If Mary behaves rudely to a visitor,
Mrs. Mason contrasts her pupil’s conduct with her own. “I have
accustomed myself to think of others, and what they will suffer on all
occasions,” she observes; “and this loathness to offend, or even to
hurt the feelings of another, is an instantaneous spring which
actuates my conduct, and makes me kindly affected to everything
that breathes.... Perhaps the greatest pleasure I have ever received
has arisen from the habitual exercise of charity in its various
branches.”
The stories with which this monitress illustrates her precepts are
drawn from the edifying annals of the neighbourhood, which is rich in
examples of vice and virtue. On the one hand we have the pious
Mrs. Trueman, the curate’s wife, who lives in a rose-covered cottage,
furnished with books and musical instruments; and on the other, we
have “the profligate Lord Sly,” and Miss Jane Fretful, who begins by
kicking the furniture when she is in a temper, and ends by alienating
all her friends (including her doctor), and dying unloved and
unlamented. How far her mother should be held responsible for this
excess of peevishness, when she rashly married a gentleman
named Fretful, is not made clear; but all the characters in the book
live nobly, or ignobly, up to their patronymics. When Mary neglects to
wash her face—apparently that was all she ever washed—or brush
her teeth in the mornings, Mrs. Mason for some time only hints her
displeasure, “not wishing to burden her with precepts”; and waits for
a “glaring example” to show the little girl the unloveliness of
permanent dirt. This example is soon afforded by Mrs. Dowdy, who
comes opportunely to visit them, and whose reluctance to perform
even the simple ablutions common to the period is as resolute as
Slovenly Peter’s.
In the matter of tuition, Mrs. Mason is comparatively lenient. Caroline
and Mary, though warned that “idleness must always be intolerable,
because it is only an irksome consciousness of existence” (words
which happily have no meaning for childhood), are, on the whole,
less saturated with knowledge than Miss Edgeworth’s Harry and
Lucy; and Harry and Lucy lead rollicking lives by contrast with
“Edwin and Henry,” or “Anna and Louisa,” or any other little pair of
heroes and heroines. Edwin and Henry are particularly ill used, for
they are supposed to be enjoying a holiday with their father, “the
worthy Mr. Friendly,” who makes “every domestic incident, the
vegetable world, sickness and death, a real source of instruction to
his beloved offspring.” How glad those boys must have been to get
back to school! Yet they court disaster by asking so many questions.
All the children in our great-grandmothers’ story-books ask
questions. All lay themselves open to attack. If they drink a cup of
chocolate, they want to know what it is made of, and where
cocoanuts grow. If they have a pudding for dinner, they are far more
eager to learn about sago and the East Indies than to eat it. They put
intelligent queries concerning the slave-trade, and make remarks
that might be quoted in Parliament; yet they are as ignorant of the
common things of life as though new-born into the world. In a book
called “Summer Rambles, or Conversations Instructive and
Amusing, for the Use of Children,” published in 1801, a little girl says
to her mother: “Vegetables? I do not know what they are. Will you tell
me?” And the mother graciously responds: “Yes, with a great deal of
pleasure. Peas, beans, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and cabbages are
vegetables.”
At least the good lady’s information was correct as far as it went,
which was not always the case. The talented governess in “Little
Truths” warns her pupils not to swallow young frogs out of bravado,
lest perchance they should mistake and swallow a toad, which would
poison them; and in a “History of Birds and Beasts,” intended for
very young children, we find, underneath a woodcut of a porcupine,
this unwarranted and irrelevant assertion:—
This creature shoots his pointed quills,
And beasts destroys, and men;
But more the ravenous lawyer kills
With his half-quill, the pen.
It was thus that natural history was taught in the year 1767.
The publication in 1798 of Mr. Edgeworth’s “Practical Education”
(Miss Edgeworth was responsible for some of the chapters) gave a
profound impetus to child-study. Little boys and girls were dragged
from the obscure haven of the nursery, from their hornbooks, and the
casual slappings of nursery-maids, to be taught and tested in the
light of day. The process appears to have been deeply engrossing.
Irregular instruction, object lessons, and experimental play afforded
scant respite to parent or to child. “Square and circular bits of wood,
balls, cubes, and triangles” were Mr. Edgeworth’s first substitutes for
toys; to be followed by “card, pasteboard, substantial but not sharp-
pointed scissors, wire, gum, and wax.” It took an active mother to
superintend this home kindergarten, to see that the baby did not
poke the triangle into its eye, and to relieve Tommy at intervals from
his coating of gum and wax. When we read further that “children are
very fond of attempting experiments in dyeing, and are very curious
about vegetable dyes,” we gain a fearful insight into parental
pleasures and responsibilities a hundred years ago.
Text-book knowledge was frowned upon by the Edgeworths. We
know how the “good French governess” laughs at her clever pupil
who has studied the “Tablet of Memory,” and who can say when
potatoes were first brought into England, and when hair powder was
first used, and when the first white paper was made. The new theory
of education banished the “Tablet of Memory,” and made it
incumbent upon parent or teacher to impart in conversation such
facts concerning potatoes, powder, and paper as she desired her
pupils to know. If books were used, they were of the deceptive order,
which purposed to be friendly and entertaining. A London bookseller
actually proposed to Godwin “a delightful work for children,” which
was to be called “A Tour through Papa’s House.” The object of this
precious volume was to explain casually how and where Papa’s
furniture was made, his carpets were woven, his curtains dyed, his
kitchen pots and pans called into existence. Even Godwin, who was
not a bubbling fountain of humour, saw the absurdity of such a book;
and recommended in its place “Robinson Crusoe,” “if weeded of its
Methodism” (alas! poor Robinson!), “The Seven Champions of
Christendom,” and “The Arabian Nights.”
The one great obstacle in the educator’s path (it has not yet been
wholly levelled) was the proper apportioning of knowledge between
boys and girls. It was hard to speed the male child up the stony
heights of erudition; but it was harder still to check the female child at
the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her
brother. In 1774 a few rash innovators conceived the project of an
advanced school for girls; one that should approach from afar a
college standard, and teach with thoroughness what it taught at all;
one that might be trusted to broaden the intelligence of women,
without lessening their much-prized femininity. It was even proposed
that Mrs. Barbauld, who was esteemed a very learned lady, should
take charge of such an establishment; but the plan met with no
approbation at her hands. In the first place she held that fifteen was
not an age for school-life and study, because then “the empire of the
passions is coming on”; and in the second place there was nothing
she so strongly discountenanced as thoroughness in a girl’s
education. On this point she had no doubts, and no reserves. “Young
ladies,” she wrote, “ought to have only such a general tincture of
knowledge as to make them agreeable companions to a man of
sense, and to enable them to find rational entertainment for a solitary
hour. They should gain these accomplishments in a quiet and
unobserved manner. The thefts of knowledge in our sex are
connived at, only while carefully concealed; and, if displayed, are
punished with disgrace. The best way for women to acquire
knowledge is from conversation with a father, a brother, or a friend;
and by such a course of reading as they may recommend.”
There was no danger that an education conducted on these lines
would result in an undue development of intelligence, would lift the
young lady above “her own mild and chastened sphere.” In justice to
Mrs. Barbauld we must admit that she but echoed the sentiments of
her day. “Girls,” said Miss Hannah More, “should be led to distrust
their own judgments.” They should be taught to give up their
opinions, and to avoid disputes, “even if they know they are right.”
The one fact impressed upon the female child was her secondary
place in the scheme of creation; the one virtue she was taught to
affect was delicacy; the one vice permitted to her weakness was
dissimulation. Even her play was not like her brother’s play,—a
reckless abandonment to high spirits; it was play within the
conscious limits of propriety. In one of Mrs. Trimmer’s books, a
model mother hesitates to allow her eleven-year-old daughter to
climb three rounds of a ladder, and look into a robin’s nest, four feet
from the ground. It was not a genteel thing for a little girl to do. Even
her schoolbooks were not like her brother’s schoolbooks. They were
carefully adapted to her limitations. Mr. Thomas Gisborne, who wrote
a much-admired work entitled “An Enquiry into the Duties of the
Female Sex,” was of the opinion that geography might be taught to
girls without reserve; but that they should learn only “select parts” of
natural history, and, in the way of science, only a few “popular and
amusing facts.” A “Young Lady’s Guide to Astronomy” was
something vastly different from the comprehensive system imparted
to her brother.
In a very able and subtle little book called “A Father’s Legacy to his
Daughters,” by Dr. John Gregory of Edinburgh,—
He whom each virtue fired, each grace refined,
Friend, teacher, pattern, darling of mankind![1]
—we find much earnest counsel on this subject. Dr. Gregory was an
affectionate parent. He grudged his daughters no material and no
intellectual advantage; but he was well aware that by too great
liberality he imperilled their worldly prospects. Therefore, although he
desired them to be well read and well informed, he bade them never
to betray their knowledge to the world. Therefore, although he
desired them to be strong and vigorous,—to walk, to ride, to live
much in the open air,—he bade them never to make a boast of their
endurance. Rude health, no less than scholarship, was the exclusive
prerogative of men. His deliberate purpose was to make them
rational creatures, taking clear and temperate views of life; but he
warned them all the more earnestly against the dangerous
indulgence of seeming wiser than their neighbours. “Be even
cautious in displaying your good sense,” writes this astute and
anxious father. “It will be thought you assume a superiority over the
rest of your company. But if you happen to have any learning, keep it
a profound secret, especially from men, who are apt to look with a
jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts and cultivated
understanding.”
This is plain speaking. And it must be remembered that “learning”
was not in 1774, nor for many years afterwards, the comprehensive
word it is to-day. A young lady who could translate a page of Cicero
was held to be learned to the point of pedantry. What reader of
“Cœlebs”—if “Cœlebs” still boasts a reader—can forget that agitating
moment when, through the inadvertence of a child, it is revealed to
the breakfast table that Lucilla Stanley studies Latin every morning
with her father. Overpowered by the intelligence, Cœlebs casts “a
timid eye” upon his mistress, who is covered with confusion. She
puts the sugar into the cream jug, and the tea into the sugar basin;
and finally, unable to bear the mingled awe and admiration
awakened by this disclosure of her scholarship, she slips out of the
room, followed by her younger sister, and commiserated by her
father, who knows what a shock her native delicacy has received.
Had the fair Lucilla admitted herself to be an expert tight-rope
dancer, she could hardly have created more consternation.
No wonder Dr. Gregory counselled his daughters to silence. Lovers
less generous than Cœlebs might well have been alienated by such
disqualifications. “Oh, how lovely is a maid’s ignorance!” sighs
Rousseau, contemplating with rapture the many things that Sophie
does not know. “Happy the man who is destined to teach her. She
will never aspire to be the tutor of her husband, but will be content to
remain his pupil. She will not endeavour to mould his tastes, but will
relinquish her own. She will be more estimable to him than if she
were learned. It will be his pleasure to enlighten her.”
This was a well-established point of view, and English Sophies were
trained to meet it with becoming deference. They heard no idle
prating about an equality which has never existed, and which never
can exist. “Had a third order been necessary,” said an eighteenth-
century schoolmistress to her pupils, “doubtless one would have
been created, a midway kind of being.” In default of such a
connecting link, any impious attempt to bridge the chasm between
the sexes met with the failure it deserved. When Mrs. Knowles, a
Quaker lady, not destitute of self-esteem, observed to Boswell that
she hoped men and women would be equal in another world, that
gentleman replied with spirit: “Madam, you are too ambitious. We
might as well desire to be equal with the angels.”
The dissimulation which Dr. Gregory urged upon his daughters, and
which is the safeguard of all misplaced intelligence, extended to
matters more vital than Latin and astronomy. He warned them, as
they valued their earthly happiness, never to make a confidante of a
married woman, “especially if she lives happily with her husband”;
and never to reveal to their own husbands the excess of their wifely
affection. “Do not discover to any man the full extent of your love, no,
not although you marry him. That sufficiently shows your preference,
which is all he is entitled to know. If he has delicacy, he will ask for
no stronger proof of your affection, for your sake; if he has sense, he
will not ask it, for his own. Violent love cannot subsist, at least cannot
be expressed, for any time together on both sides. Nature in this
case has laid the reserve on you.” In the passivity of women, no less
than in their refined duplicity, did this acute observer recognize the
secret strength of sex.
A vastly different counsellor of youth was Mrs. West, who wrote a
volume of “Letters to a Young Lady” (the young lady was Miss
Maunsell, and she died after reading them), which were held to
embody the soundest morality of the day. Mrs. West is as dull as Dr.
Gregory is penetrating, as verbose as he is laconic, as obvious as he
is individual. She devotes many agitated pages to theology, and
many more to irrefutable, though one hopes unnecessary,
arguments in behalf of female virtue. But she also advises a careful
submission, a belittling insincerity, as woman’s best safeguards in
life. It is not only a wife’s duty to tolerate her husband’s follies, but it
is the part of wisdom to conceal from him any knowledge of his
derelictions. Bad he may be; but it is necessary to his comfort to
believe that his wife thinks him good. “The lordly nature of man so
strongly revolts from the suspicion of inferiority,” explains this
excellent monitress, “that a susceptible husband can never feel easy
in the society of his wife when he knows that she is acquainted with
his vices, though he is well assured that her prudence, generosity,
and affection will prevent her from being a severe accuser.” One is
reminded of the old French gentleman who said he was aware that
he cheated at cards, but he disliked any allusion to the subject.
To be “easy” in a wife’s society, to relax spiritually as well as
mentally, and to be immune from criticism;—these were the
privileges which men demanded, and which well-trained women
were ready to accord. In 1808 the “Belle Assemblée” printed a model
letter, which purported to come from a young wife whose husband
had deserted her and her child for the more lively society of his
mistress. It expressed in pathetic language the sentiments then
deemed correct,—sentiments which embodied the patience of
Griselda, without her acquiescence in fate. The wife tells her
husband that she has retired to the country for economy, and to
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