My Antonia by Willa Cather-What is an education?

I have been away from work for about a month now.  My life as a professor is pretty much over and this reading list and blog is part of my recovery.  After reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath I chose to read My Antonia by Willa Cather.  My what a good book.  This book was so solid and sturdy.  Willa Cather wrote this book as a man, Jim Burden, telling the story of a girl he knew in his youth.  Jim loved Antonia and she loved him.  But, they could never be together because Jim was of a higher social standing than Antonia.  Jim's grandparents were important proud people of Nebraska while Antonia was a Bohemian immigrant.  Antonia's cast was much lower.  Later when Jim and his family moved to the city Antonia would be referred to as one of the "country girls" or one of the "hired girls".  To fully understand this one would have to read the book.

The idea that I would like to focus on today is the concept of education from the perspective of Willa Cather's character Jim Burden. 

    "There was a curious social situation in Black Hawk.  All the young men felt the

      attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a

      living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle out of debt, or

      make it possible for the younger children of the family to go to school.

 

      Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had got little schooling

      themselves.  But the younger brothers and sisters, from whom they made such

      sacrifices and who have had "advantages," never seem to me, when I meet them

      now, half as interesting or a well educated.  The older girls, who helped to break

      up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and

      grandmothers; they had all, like Antonia, been early awakened and made

      observant by coming at a tender age from old country to a new."  (Willa Cather, My Antonia)

 

Jim later went on to become a wealthy lawyer.  So he was well educated in the traditional sense.  But, because if where he came from he was educated by life just like Antonia, Lena, and Tiny.  Hard work during tough times is an education that one can't pay for.  This type of education is priceless.  It teaches us character, fortitude, enterprise, management of resources.  Like I always told my class there is knowing and then there is KNOWING.  These girls were smart survivors with the intelligence that could match then men. 

 

Jim and the other  men were attracted to these young women because they were smart.  They were as intelligent as the men.  Because of their intelligence and their industry these women would have made great partners and spouses. That is why the men were attracted to them.  They weren't BORING, NEEDY CREATURES that needed pampering.  They were educated.

 

Intelligence and education comes in many forms.  And when, we are all honest, intelligence is attractive.

 

PhD Mom