It is significant that "The Schoolmaster's
Progress" opens with the scratching of a pen, as
Harriet Bangle, newly arrived from the eastern metropolis,
begins to describe the country world she plans to
conquer. Recast to keep us involved in Harriet's
point of view, the drama thereby makes us aware
of the writer behind the story, Caroline Kirkland
herself, who, even while she takes the young woman
protagonist to task for her vanity, had something
of Harriet in her own makeup as well. Kirkland's
journey to Pinkney, Michigan, and her experiences
in adjusting to the provincialism of pioneer life
must have led her, especially at first, to feel
somewhat condescending. Indeed, when her first book
about that period, A New Home-Who'll Follow?,
appeared, her neighbors thought just that: Kirkland
was, to their way of thinking, poking fun at the
narrowness of prospects in their village.
Kirkland was both insider and outsider
in the frontier world where she and her family tried
to make a living for six years, and that perspective
informs her story. "The Schoolmaster's Progress"
deals with all kinds of presumptions and pride,
yet, as was typical of Kirkland's writing throughout
her life, the satire falls rather benevolently on
the heads of all. Especially in this dramatization,
we are certainly appalled at Harriet 
Bangle's
plot, and we are aware that she acts out of a very
misplaced confidence in her own wit. Nevertheless,
we feel some sympathy for her by the end. The schoolmaster
is a pretty foolish fellow. The townsfolk quickly
become vicious, especially pleased at exposing the
snobbery of a girl from the big city. There is,
too, some ironic tenderness reserved for the sentiment
voiced by Ellen's blunt, rather uncouth father when
he mourns that "the country way of life" has fallen
"by the wayside." Kirkland was very aware of the
potential tragedy contained in the passing of the
wilderness that her husband and the other families
of Pinkney were themselves augmenting. There is
rudeness and lack of culture in the community Harriet
enters. On her side there is smugness and insensitivity
to the pastoral values of simplicity and openness.
The story airs all sides.
The schoolmaster's fervent respect
for Webster's American Dictionary is an important
touch in the drama. First appearing in two volumes
in 1828, Webster's dictionary signaled that this
rude new country, hardly fifty years old, had achieved
one of the great hallmarks of a civilized state:
the possession of its own native language. As "The
Schoolmaster's Progress" shows, words convey all
kinds of messages, often by how they are pronounced
as much as by what they mean. The brief altercation
between Horner and one of his rebellious male students
over the use of French words that are making their
way into the American vocabulary illustrates what
is happening in this village itself-a clash of cultures
is exposing old manners and identities to new interpretations
and challenges. And, of course, there is great fun
to be had with the word beau, which poor
Ellen mistakes as bow because she is not
watching (she is undoubtedly far too modest to watch)
the position of Horner's mouth. Beau is in
one sense one of those foreign, high-culture words,
yet everyone in the village is interested in making
Horner a beau for some local girl. The word is on
everyone's mind-everyone but Ellen's, to Horner's
own chagrin.
Kirkland's title uses the word progress
ironically in several respects. The schoolmaster's
progress in courting Ellen is both illusory and
real. The frontier town's progress in becoming civilized
is assured by the schoolmaster's great devotion
to teaching his reluctant scholars, but his idealistic
attachment to forms is contrasted to young Joe's
preference for Nathaniel Hale-a true American hero,
part of the new country's, and this new town's,
brief history. Progress itself is a mixed blessing.
Certainly Harriet, as an example of the "high" culture
achieved back east, illustrates how manners do not
themselves mean good morals or good sense.
Kirkland's story on one level illustrates
several conventions of the ladies'-magazine fiction
market for which it was written. Such works mined
the staple plot of courtship and manners, generally
pressing a useful moral, something instructive for
young ladies to take away with them, couched gently
in an entertaining sort of animal fable. However,
very early in her career, Kirkland developed a sharpness
and frankness of tone that give her works a refreshing
boldness, a satirical edge. She looks critically
at romanticism as she employs the stock tools of
the traditional romance tale: the letters, the French
phrases, the miscues and falterings of young love.
That such a limited fellow as Horner becomes the
center of everyone's attentions simply because he
is potentially eligible as a husband indicates the
ways in which marriage and marriageability dominate
culture, with dubious benefits to all. The "all's
well that ends well" conclusion sends a chastened
Harriet back to her proper milieu, as Kirkland herself
returned to New York City, undoubtedly with a few
similar feelings of relief. Yet something of the
brash realism of life on the frontier, which finds
its way into stories like "The Schoolmaster's Progress,"
stayed with Kirkland, serving her well as she became
one of America's first important realists. -Lucinda H. MacKethan
Photograph courtesy of the Detroit
Public Library
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