hard surface he puts on, to fit him for the wear and tear of every day, he has a heart as true to the kindly affections of our nature, as that of woman-as true, though not as suddenly awakened to every passing call. He has therefore need of all her sisterly services, and, under the pressure of the present times, he needs them more than ever, to foster in his nature, and establish in his character, that higher tone of feeling without which he can enjoy nothing beyond a kind of animal existence-but with which, he may faithfully pursue the necessary avocations of the day, and keep as it were a separate soul for his family, his social duty, and his God. There is another point of consideration by which this necessity for a higher degree of female influence is greatly increased, and it is one which comprises much that is interesting to those who aspire to be the supporters of their country's worth. The British throne being now graced by a female sovereign, the auspicious promise of whose early years seems to form a new era in the annals of our nation, and to inspire with brighter hopes and firmer confidence the patriot bosoms of her expectant people; it is surely not a time for the female part of the community to fall away from the high standard of moral excellence, to which they have been accustomed to look, in the formation of their domestic habits. Rather let them show forth the benefits arising from their more enlightened systems of education, by proving to their youthful sovereign, that whatever plan she may think it right to sanction for the moral advancement of her subjects, and the promotion of their true interests as an intelligent and happy people, will be welcomed by every female heart throughout her realm, and faithfully supported in every British home by the female influence prevailing there. It will be the business of the writer through the whole of the succeeding pages of this work, to endeavor to point out, how the women of England may render this important service, not only to the members of their own households, but to the community at large; and if I fail in arousing them to bring, as with one mind, their united powers to stem the popular torrent now threatening to undermine the strong foundation of England's moral worth, it will not be for want of earnestness in the cause, but because I am not endowed with talent equal to the task. CHAPTER III. MODERN EDUCATION. In writing on the subject of modern education, I cannot help entertaining a fear lest some remarks I may in candor feel constrained to make, should be construed into disrespect towards that truly praiseworthy and laborious portion of the community, employed in conducting this education, and pursuing, with laudable endeavors, what is generally believed to be the best method of training up the young women of the present day. Such, however, is the real state of my own sentiments, that I have long been accustomed to consider this class of individuals as not only entitled to the highest pecuniary consideration, but equally so to the first place in society, to the gratitude of their fellow-creatures, and to the respect of mankind in general, who, both as individuals, and as a community, are deeply indebted to them for their indefatigable and often ill-requited services. A woman of cultivated understanding and correct religious principle, when engaged in the responsible task of educating the rising generation, in reality fills one of the most responsible stations to which a human being can aspire; and nothing can more clearly indicate a low state of public morals than the vulgar disrespect and parsimonious remuneration with which the agents employed in education are sometimes requited. It is with what is taught, not with those who teach, that I am daring enough to find fault. It may be that I am taking an unen lightened and prejudiced view of the subject; yet, such is the strong conviction of my own mind, that I cannot rest without attempting to prove that the present education of the women of England does not fit them for faithfully performing the duties which devolve upon them immediately after their leaving school, and throughout the whole of their after lives,—does not convert them from helpless children into such characters as all women must be, in order to be either esteemed or admired. Nor are their teachers accountable for this. It is the fashion of the day-it is the ambition of the times, that all people should, as far as possible, learn all things of which the human intellect takes cognizance; and what would be the consternation of parents whose daughter should return home to them from school unskilled in modern accomplishments,-to whom her governess should say, "It is true, I have been unable to make your child a proficient either in French or Latin, nor is she very apt at the use of the globes, but she has been pre-eminent among my scholars for her freedom from selfishness, and she possesses a nobility of feeling that will never allow her to be the victim of meanness, or the slave of grovelling desires." In order to ascertain what kind of education is most effective in making woman what she ought to be, the best method is to inquire into the character, station, and peculiar duties of woman throughout the largest portion of her earthly career; and then ask, for what she is most valued, admired, and beloved. In answer to this, I have little hesitation in saying, for her disinterested kindness. Look at all the heroines whether of romance or reality at all the female characters that are held up to universal admiration-at all who have gone down to honored graves, among the tears and the lamentations of their survivors. Have these been the learned, the accomplished women; the women who could speak many languages, who could solve problems, and elucidate systems of philosophy No or if they have, they have also been women who were dignified with the majesty of moral greatness-women who regarded not themselves, their own feebleness, or their own susceptibility of pain, but who, endued with an almost superhuman energy, could trample under foot every impediment that intervened between them and the accomplishment of some great object upon which their hopes were fixed, while that object was wholly unconnected with their own personal exaltation or enjoyment, and related only to some beloved object, whose suffering was their sorrow, whose good their gain. Woman, with all her accumulation of minute disquietudes, her weakness, and her sensibility, is but a meager item in the catalogue of humanity; but roused by a sufficient motive to forget all these, or, rather, continually forgetting them, because she has other and nobler thoughts to occupy her mind, woman is truly and majestically great. Never yet, however, was woman great because she had great acquirements; nor can she ever be great in herself-personally, and without instrumentality-as an object, not an agent. From the beginning to the end of school education, the improvement of self, so far as relates to intellectual attainments, is made the rule and the motive of all that is done. Rewards are appointed and portioned out for what has been learned, not what has been imparted. To gain, is the universal order of the establishment; and those who have heaped together the greatest sum of knowledge are usually regarded as the most meritorious. Excellent discourses may be delivered by the preceptress upon the Christian duties of benevolence and disinterested love; but the whole system is one of pure selfishness, fed by accumulation, and rewarded by applause. To be at the head of the class, to gain the ticket or the prize, are the points of universal ambition; and few individuals, among the community of aspirants, are taught to look forward with a rational presentiment to that future, when their merit will be to give the place of honor to others, and their happiness to give it to those who are more worthy than themselves. We will not assert that no one entertains such thoughts; for there is a voice in woman's heart too strong for education—a principle which the march of intellect is unable to overthrow. her friend, or refusing to assist her in her difficulties. In the schools of the ancients, an act of patient disinterestedness like this, would have met with encouragement and reward; in the school where it took place, it was well for both parties that it was never known. In making these and similar remarks, I am aware that I may bring upon myself the charge of wishing to exclude from our schools all intellectual attainments whatever; for how, it will be asked, can learning be acquired without emulation, and without rewards for the diligent, and punishments for the idle? Retiring from the emulous throng, we sometimes find a little, despised, neglected girl, who has won no prize, obtained no smile of approbation from her superiors. She is a dull girl, who learns slowly, and cannot be taught so as to keep up with the rest without incalculable pains. The fact is, she has no great wish to keep up with them: she only wants to be loved and trusted by her teachers; and oh! how does she wish, with tears, and al- | most with prayers, that they would love and trust her, and give her credit for doing her best. Beyond this she is indifferent; she has no motive but that of pleasing others, for trying can know too much, so long as the sphere ing to be clever; and she is quite satisfied that her friend, the most ambitious girl in the school, should obtain all the honors without her competition. Indeed, she feels as though it scarcely would be delicate, scarcely kind in her, to try so much to advance before her friend; and she gently falls back, is reproved for her neglect, and, finally, despised. I knew a girl who was one of the best grammarians in a large school, whose friend was peculiarly defective in that particular branch of learning. Once every year the order of the class was reversed, the girl who held the highest place exchanging situations with the lowest, and thus affording all an equal chance of obtaining honors. The usual order of the class was soon restored, except that the good grammarian was always expected by her friend to whisper in her ear a suitable answer to every question proposed, and as this girl necessarily retrograded to the place to which her own ignorance entitled her, her friend felt bound by affection and kindness to relieve her distress every time the alarming question came to her turn. She consequently remained the lowest in the class until the time of her leaving the school, often subjected to the reproofs of her teachers, and fully alive to her humiliating situation, but never once turning a deaf ear to So far, however, from wishing to cast a shade of disrespect over such attainments, I am decidedly of opinion that no human be of knowledge does not extend to what is positively evil. I am also of opinion that there is scarcely any department of art or science, still less of mental application, which is not calculated to strengthen and improve the mind; but at the same time I regard the improvement of the heart of so much greater consequence, that if time and opportunity should fail for both, I would strenuously recommend that women should be sent home from school with fewer accomplishments, and more of the will and the power to perform the various duties necessarily devolving upon them. Again, I am reminded of the serious and important fact, that religion alone can improve the heart; and to this statement no one can yield assent with more reverential belief in its truth than myself. I acknowledge, also, for I know it to be a highly creditable fact, that a large proportion of the meritorious individuals who take upon themselves the arduous task of training up the young, are conscientiously engaged in giving to religious instruction that place which it ought unquestionably to hold in every Christian school. But I would ask, is instruction all that is wanted for instilling into the minds of the rising generation the benign principles of Christian faith and practice? It is not thought enough to instruct the young sculptor in the rules of his art, to charge his memory with the names of those who have excelled in it, and with the principles they have laid down for the guidance of others.-No: he must work with his own hand; and long before that hand, and the mind by which it is influenced, have attained maturity, he must have learned to mould the pliant clay, and have thus become familiar with the practice of his art. And shall this universally acknowledged system of instruction, to which we are indebted for all that is excellent in art and admirable in science, be neglected in the education of the young Christian alone? Shall he be taught the bare theory of his religion, and left to work out its practice as he can? Shall he be instructed in what he is to believe, and not assisted in doing also the will of his heavenly Father? We all know that it is not easy to practise even the simplest rule of right, when we have not been accustomed to do so: and the longer we are before we begin to regulate our conduct by the precepts of religion, the more difficult it will be to acquire such habits as are calculated to adorn and show forth the purity and excellence of its principles. There is one important difference between the acquisition of knowledge, and the acquisition of good habits, which of itself ought to be sufficient to ensure a greater degree of attention to the latter. When the little pupil first begins her education, her mind is a total blank, as far as relates to the different branches of study into which she is about to be introduced, and there is consequently nothing to oppose. She is not prepossessed in favor of any false system of arithmetic, grammar, or geography, and the ideas presented to her on these subjects are consequently willingly received, and adopted as her own. How different is the moral state of the uninstructed child! Selfishness coeval with her existence has attained an alarming growth; and all the other passions and propensities inherent in her nature, taking their natural course, have strengthened with her advance towards maturity, and are ready to assume an aspect too formidable to afford any prospect of their being easily brought into subjection. Yet, notwithstanding this difference, the whole machinery of education is brought to bear upon the intellectual part of her nature, and her moral feelings are left to the training of the play-ground, where personal influence, rather than right feeling, too frequently decides her disputes, and places her either high or low in the ranks of her companions. It is true, she is very seriously and properly corrected when convicted of having done wrong, and an admirable system of morals is promulgated in the school; but the subject I would complain of is, that no means have yet been adopted for making the practice of this system the object of highest importance in our schools. No adequate means have been adopted for testing the generosity, the high-mindedness, the integrity of the children who pursue their education at school, until they leave it at the age of sixteen, when their moral faculties, either for good or for evil, must have attained considerable growth. Let us single out from any particular seminary a child who has been there from the years of ten to fifteen, and reckon, if it can be reckoned, the pains that have been spent in making that child a proficient in Latin. Have the same pains been spent in making her disinterestedly kind? And yet what man is there in existence who would not rather his wife should be free from selfishness, than be able to read Virgil without the use of a dictionary. There is no reason, however, why both these desirable ends should not be aimed at, and as the child progresses in self-denial, forbearance, generosity, and disinterested kindness, it might be her reward to advance in the acquisition of languages, or of whatever accomplishments it might be thought most desirable for her to attain. If I am told there would not be time for all the discipline requisite for the practice of morals, I ask in reply, how much do most young ladies learn at school for which they never find any use in after life, and for which it is not probable, from their circumstances, that they ever should. Let the hours spent upon music by those who have no ear-upon drawing, by those who might almost be said to have no eye upon languages, by those who never afterwards speak any other than their mother tongue-be added together year after year; and an aggregate of wasted time will present itself, sufficient to alarm those who are sensible of its value, and of the awful responsibility of using it aright. It is impossible that the teachers, or even the parents themselves, should always know the future destiny of the child; but there is an appropriate sphere for women to move in, from which those of the middle class in England seldom deviate very widely. This sphere has duties and occupations of its own, from which no woman can shrink without culpability and disgrace; and the question is, are women prepared for these duties and occupations by what they learn at school? For my own part, I know not how education deserves the name, if it does not prepare the individual whom it influences for filling her appointed station in the best possible manner. What, for instance, should we think of a school for sailors, in which nothing was taught but the fine arts; or for musicians, in which the students were only instructed in the theory of sound? With regard to the women of England, I have already ventured to assert that the quality for which, above all others, they are esteemed and valued, is their disinterested kindness. A selfish woman may not improperly be regarded as a monster, especially in that sphere of life where there is a constant demand made upon her services. But how are women taught at school to forget themselves, and to cultivate that high tone of generous feeling to which the world is so much indebted for the hope and the joy, the peace and the consolation, which the influence and companionship of woman is able to diffuse throughout its very deserts, visiting, as with blessed sunshine, the abodes of the wretched and the poor, and sharing cheerfully the lot of the afflicted? In what school, or under what system of modern education, can it be said that the chief aim of the teachers, the object to which their laborious exertions are mainly directed, is to correct the evil of selfishness in the hearts of their pupils? Improved methods of charging and surcharging the memory are eagerly sought out, and pursued, at any cost of time and patience, if not of health itself; but who ever thinks of establishing a selfish class among the girls of her establishment, or of awarding the honors and distinctions of the school to such as have exhibited the most meritorious instances of self-denial for the benefit of others? It may be objected to this plan, that virtue ought to be its own reward, and that honors and rewards adjudged to the most meritorious in a moral point of view, would be likely to induce a degree of self-complacency wholly inconsistent with Christian meekness. I am aware that, in our imperfect state, no plan can be laid down for the promotion of good, with which evil will not be liable to mix. All I contend for is, that the same system of discipline, with the same end in view, should be begun and carried on at school, as that to which the scholar will necessarily be subject ed in after life; and that throughout the training of her early years, the same standard of merit should be adopted, as she will find herself compelled to look up to, when released from that training, and sent forth into the world to think and act for herself. At school it has been the business of every day to raise herself above her companions by attainments greater than theirs; in after life it will be the business of every day to give place to others, to think of their happiness, and to make sacrifices of her own to promote it. If such acts of self-denial, when practised at school, should endanger the equanimity of her mind by the approbation they obtain, what will they do in the world she is about to enter, where the unanimous opinion of mankind, both in this and in past ages, is in their favor, and where she must |