New England was the great nursery of this class, as it was of so many others, transplanted beyond the Alleghenies. Emigration, and the enticements and casualties of a seafaring life--drawing the men into their appropriate channels of enterprise and adventure, had there reduced their number below that of the women--thus remitting many of the latter, to other than the usual and natural occupations of "the sex." Matrimony became a remote possibility to large numbers--attention to household matters gave place to various kinds of light labor--and, since they were not likely to have progeny of their own to rear, many resorted to the teaching of children belonging to others. Idleness was a rare vice; and New England girls--to their honor be it spoken--have seldom resembled "the lilies of the field," in aught, save the fairness of their complexions! They have never displayed much squeamishness--about work: and if they could not benefit the rising generation in a maternal, were willing to make themselves useful in a tutorial capacity. The people of that enlightened section, have always possessed the learning necessary to appreciate, and the philanthropy implied in the wish to dispel, the benighted ignorance of all other quarters of the world; and thus a competent number of them have ever been found willing to give up the comforts of home, for the benefit of the "barbarous west." The schoolmistress, then, generally came from the "cradle" of intelligence, as well as "of liberty," beyond the Hudson; and, in the true spirit of benevolence, she carried her blessings (herself the greatest) across the mountain barrier, to bestow them, _gratis_, upon the spiritually and materially needy, in the valley of the Mississippi. Her vocation, or, as it would now be called, her "mission" was to teach an impulse not only given by her education, but belonging to her nature. She had a constitutional tendency toward it--indeed, a genius for it; like that which impels one to painting, another to sculpture--this to a learned profession, that to a mechanical trade. And so perfectly was she adapted to it, that "the ignorant people of the west" not recognising her "divine appointment," were often at a loss to conjecture, who, or whether anybody, could have taught _her_! For that same "ignorant," and too often, ungrateful people, she was full of tender pity--the yearning of the single-hearted missionary, for the welfare of his flock. _They_ were steeped in darkness, but _she_ carried the light--nay, she _was_ the light! and with a benignity, often evinced by self-sacrifice--she poured it graciously over the land-- "Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do: Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not."