Miss Rogerson

Miss Rogerson was the teacher of Anne Shirley's first Sunday-school class at Avonlea, a middle-aged woman who had been instructing the same group for twenty years. Her method of teaching consisted entirely of asking the printed questions from the quarterly and looking sternly over its edge at whichever little girl she thought ought to answer. She looked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla Cuthbert's drilling, answered promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very much about either question or answer. Anne did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very miserable; every other little girl in the class had puffed sleeves, and Anne felt that life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves.

Teaching Style and Anne's Reaction

Miss Rogerson's classroom was a place of strict, impersonal routine. She did all the asking, and Anne, who had many questions of her own, did not dare to ask them because she did not think Miss Rogerson was a kindred spirit. When the other girls recited a paraphrase, Miss Rogerson asked Anne if she knew any. Anne told her she did not, but offered to recite "The Dog at His Master's Grave" from the Third Royal Reader, explaining that although it was not a truly religious piece of poetry, it was so sad and melancholy that it might as well be. Miss Rogerson said it would not do and told Anne to learn the nineteenth paraphrase for next Sunday. Anne read it over in church afterwards and found it splendid, particularly the lines "Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell / In Midian's evil day," which thrilled her even though she did not know what "squadrons" or "Midian" meant.

Contrast with Anne's Spirituality

Miss Rogerson's approach to religious instruction stood in stark contrast to the personal, imaginative spirituality that Anne was developing. While Miss Rogerson drilled from the quarterly, Anne found herself gazing out the window at the Lake of Shining Waters during the opening exercises, imagining all sorts of splendid things. When Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer, Anne was dreadfully tired until she looked out the window and saw the long row of white birches hanging over the lake with sunshine falling down through them deep into the water. It was like a beautiful dream, and she said "Thank you for it, God" two or three times under her breath. The sermon was awfully long too, and Anne did not listen to him very much, letting her thoughts run and thinking of the most surprising things. Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had said, especially about the minister's sermons and Mr. Bell's prayers, were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for years but had never given expression to.

Significance in Anne's Development

Miss Rogerson represented the kind of conventional, unimaginative religious education that Anne instinctively resisted. The experience reinforced Anne's preference for a more personal and emotional connection to faith, which she would later find in Mrs. Allan, the new minister's wife who became a kindred spirit. Mrs. Allan took over Anne's Sunday-school class and immediately said she did not think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the questions, which was exactly what Anne had always thought. Mrs. Allan said the girls could ask her any question they liked, and Anne asked ever so many. The contrast between Miss Rogerson's rigid method and Mrs. Allan's open, engaging approach marked a turning point in Anne's religious development, showing that the right teacher could make religion a cheerful thing rather than a melancholy duty.