Читать книгу Aaron Burr: A Biography - Nathan Schachner - Страница 58

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Despite his financial difficulties, however, and despite his preoccupation with law and politics, Burr found time to supervise with meticulous exactitude the rearing and education of his little daughter, Theodosia.

He had very definite ideas on the subject of education, especially of female education. He resented the bland assumption of the day that women were inferior to men in mental capacity, and he was determined that his daughter should prove to the world that, given equal opportunities, the female brain was equally competent with the male. It became an obsession with him, almost the guiding passion of his life. He had married Theodosia Prevost because of her intellectual endowment.

“It was a knowledge of your mind,” he told her in later years, “which first inspired me with a respect for that of your sex, and with some regret, I confess, that the ideas which you have often heard me express in favour of female intellectual powers are founded on what I have imagined, more than what I have seen, except in you. I have endeavoured to trace the causes of this rare display of genius in women, and find them in the errors of education, of prejudice, and of habit ... Boys and girls are generally educated much in the same way till they are eight or nine years of age, and it is admitted that girls make at least equal progress with the boys; generally, indeed, they make better. Why, then, has it never been thought worth the attempt to discover, by fair experiment, the particular age at which the male superiority becomes so evident?”^[232]

Burr determined to make the experiment. Little Theo was to be his laboratory guinea-pig, his shining example. The blood of many educators flowed in his veins. And he had just finished reading, with a mounting excitement, a certain volume he had recently received from England.

“You have heard me speak of a Miss Woolstonecraft [sic],” he hastened to inform his wife, “who has written something on the French revolution; she has also written a book entitled ‘Vindication of the rights of Woman.’ I had heard it spoken of with a coldness little calculated to excite attention; but as I read with avidity and prepossession every thing written by a lady, I made haste to procure it, and spent the last night, almost the whole of it, in reading it. Be assured that your sex has in her an able advocate. It is, in my opinion, a work of genius. She has successfully adopted the style of Rousseau’s Emilius; and her comment on that work, especially what relates to female education, contains more good sense than all the other criticisms upon him which I have seen put together.” Astonished, he inquires, “is it owing to ignorance or prejudice that I have not yet met a single person who had discovered or would allow the merit of this work?”^[233]

But then, Aaron Burr possessed a singularly flexible and open mind, and new ideas were eagerly welcomed. Besides Mary Wollstonecraft, there had been Jeremy Bentham, and others, including Gibbon, whose monumental work had just been published, of whom he was perhaps the first in America to appreciate the importance.

So, with the theoretic background of the author of the “Vindication,” of Rousseau, of Chesterfield, of Godwin and Voltaire, he set about molding in earnest the genius of little Theo.

The course of training that he imposed was rigorous and exacting. It was Spartan in its insistence on regularity and self-discipline, yet it was compounded with ideas and methods that were far ahead of his time.

At the age of eight, he was insisting, “I hope Theo. will learn to ride on horseback. Two or three hours a day at French and arithmetic will not injure her. Be careful of green apples, etc.”^[234] And Mrs. Burr was complaining in return that Theo had too many avocations to make much progress. Nevertheless “she begins to cipher” and “I take care she never omits learning her French lesson.” But, she continues, “I don’t think the dancing lessons do much good while the weather is so warm,” and “as to music, upon the footing it now is she can never make progress, though she sacrifices two thirds of her time to it. Tis a serious check to her other requirements.”^[235]

However, a little later she is able to report with some pride that “Theo is much better; she writes and ciphers from five in the morning until eight, and also the same hours in the evening,” and that “she makes amazing progress with figures.”^[236]

Nor was the elder Theodosia herself exempt from her husband’s educational drive. “To render any reading really amusing or in any degree instructive, you should never pass a word you do not understand, or the name of a person or place of which you have not some knowledge.... Lempriere’s Dictionary is that of which I spoke to you. Purchase also Macbeau’s; this last is appropriate to ancient theocracy, fiction and geography, both of them will be useful in reading Gibbon, and still more so in reading ancient authors, or of any period of ancient history.” Gibbon, Plutarch’s Lives, Herodotus, Paley’s Philosophy of Natural History—all these he recommends. “The reading of one book will invite you to another,” he continues. “I cannot, I fear, at this distance, advise you successfully; much less can I hope to assist you in your reading.... I am inclined to dilate on these topics, and upon the effects of reading and study on the mind; but this would require an essay, and I have not time to write a letter.”^[237]

As for the little girl, her education proceeded apace, in accordance with a preconceived plan. “You may recollect,” Burr reminded his wife from his Senatorial duties in Philadelphia, “that I left a memorandum of what Theo was to learn. I hope it has been strictly attended to. Desire Gurney [her tutor] not to attempt to teach her anything about the ‘concords.’ I will show him how I choose that should be done when I return.” Then suddenly he bursts out into a passion of words that give the clue to the driving purpose which not for a moment would he allow to waver. “If I could foresee that Theo would become a mere fashionable woman,” he exclaims, “with all the attendant frivolity and vacuity of mind, adorned with whatever grace and allurement, I would earnestly pray God to take her forthwith hence. But I yet hope, by her, to convince the world what neither sex appear to believe—that women have souls!”^[238]

This was the man who too often has been portrayed as the heartless gallant, the unthinking seducer of innumerable women, the mere luster after their flesh!

He exhorted the younger Theo as well as the elder. “I received your french english Letter by Major Prevost,” he told her. “It is a very good one, but not half long enough ... How many tunes can you play? and can you play them so that any one except your Master will know one from the other?

“Major Prevost indeed gives me a fine report of you, but in two or three weeks I shall come & see for myself, and I now tell you that I shall expect to see the most accomplished Girl for her years in the whole world. Take Care that I be not disappointed.”^[239]

By 1793, Theo was ten, and corresponding regularly with her father in Philadelphia. She sent him a fable and a riddle, which, “if the whole performance was your own, which I am inclined to hope and believe, it indicates an improvement in style, in knowledge of French, and in your handwriting. I have therefore not only read it several times, but shown it to several persons with pride and pleasure.”^[240] The martinet educator was after all a very human father.

He insisted that she keep a journal, in which “you are to note the occurrences of the day as concisely as you can; and, at your pleasure, to add any short reflections or remarks that may arise.” For her guidance he enclosed a sample. The sample is well worth quoting entire.

“Learned 230 lines, which finished Horace. Heigh-ho for Terence and the Greek grammar to-morrow.

“Practiced two hours less thirty-five minutes, which I have begged off.

“Hewlett (dancing master) did not come.

“Began Gibbon last evening. I find he requires as much study and attention as Horace; so I shall not rank the reading of him among amusements.

“Skated an hour; fell twenty times, and find the advantage of a hard head and

“Ma better—dined with us at table, and is still sitting up and free from pain.”^[241]

All their lives, father and daughter were to maintain a felicitous bantering in their correspondence. But the sample is memorable for another reason. It outlined a pretty heavy regimen for a child of ten.

His letters continued to be preoccupied with her lessons, her journal, her spelling, the style of her writing, her progress. Even to the very slightest detail. But a new note was creeping into his letters. The cancer was taking its last toll of his tortured wife. She was taking laudanum now, steadily, and soon even that was failing to give relief. Burr was in Philadelphia, attending the session of Congress. He consulted with the famous Dr. Benjamin Rush, with other doctors. He suggested numerous remedies, some with medical sanction, some without, hoping against hope. Mrs. Burr became bedridden; it was an event when she appeared at dinner with the family. Her nights and days were painful beyond bearing. Burr wished to leave his Senatorial duties and rush to her bedside. She forbade it. On May 18, 1794, Theodosia Prevost Burr died, suddenly, with only little Theo at her side.

They had been very happy together, though in the last years the shadow of her invalidism had fallen across their marriage. They had loved, they had admired and respected each other. He had been faithful and tender, and she had adored him. Only after her death, and it was to be long after, did Burr begin those innumerable little affairs of gallantry and mere sexual assuagement which were to become notoriously associated with his name.