"Brown,.Mary.-.Unicorn's.Ring.4.-.1999.-.Dragonne's.Eg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Mary)

to eight-year-olds in poor district. Wages: twenty-six pounds per year. Some
food supplied. Only serious and dedicated applicants need apply." Her
advertisement had been last on my list because of the low wage, but somehow the
tone of the letter I received fired me with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
"I note that your qualifications are more than adequate for our Junior Class,
but you must realise that the possession of knowledge is not, in itself, the
only requirement in a good teacher. It also involves patience, a liking for your
pupils and, above all, the art of communication.
"You are young, but that cannot be held against you: you will not have had time
to form bad habits or hard opinions. I note from your headmistress's
recommendation that you have a mind of your own and are not afraid to express
your views: I prefer this attitude to that of a milksop-miss.
"If you decide to take the post you must be prepared to live in an insalubrious
district and deal with children who are poor, ill-clad, unwashed and often
apathetic. The position is not an easy one, but it might well prove rewarding if
you manage to improve the lot of only one of these deprived children."
So, my youth and inexperience didn't matter! Even my assertiveness was accepted
as a sort of virtue. Was I patient? I thought so. Could I like the unlikeable?
Probably—after all, children were children the world over. Could I communicate?
Definitely!
And so, a fortnight later, the remaining sticks of furniture sold, apart from my
father's comfortable wing-chair, my mother's writing desk and embroidered
footstool and a mantel-clock that I had had in my bedroom since I was a child, I
took the stage to London and a new life.
And here I still was, nearly three years later.
Perhaps if I had had the faintest idea of just how tough those years were to be
I would not have come, but, perversely, I was glad I had. Financially I was
badly off; I lived in squalid conditions and probably didn't eat enough healthy
food, and the teaching was mind-blowingly monotonous and unrewarding. It seemed
my nostrils were always full of the smell of unwashed bodies, urine, chalk,
smoke and fog.
Against all those was the plus of living in London itself. It was a wondrous,
vibrant city, full of museums, galleries, ancient monuments, theatres, parks and
beautiful churches, all of which fed the hunger for beauty and learning which I
hadn't realised had lain dormant in me for so long. The fantastic wonders of the
Crystal Palace, the military bands, the Palace with its changing of the guard,
the gaily dressed people, the shops crammed with goodies—
Of course there was the other side as well. London was like a beautifully
dressed woman with dirty underwear. Horrendous slums, depraved and deprived
lower-classes, running sewers, a pall of choking smoke most of the year; the
blind, the crippled, the lame begging on every street corner and the prisons
full of debtors, thieves and worse.
But these three years had toughened me. I was now far more self-reliant,
realising just how sheltered, pampered and protected I had been as a child. Now
I believed I knew far better how to extract the best from the simplest of
pleasures. I also realised how our little school shone out like a bunch of
bright weeds against the dull poverty around us.
Only one in ten of our little charges really benefitted from the education we
offered, but at least they were off the streets, were fed, warm and, if
necessary, clothed. Miss Moffat and her sister were adept at visiting some of