sail away, rejecting her care, and regardless of her call. To those who might submit to it, such superabundant care would prove highly injurious both to body and mind, and must expose them to the ridicule of their associates. One of the most essential services which a mother can render to her resident sons, is by every prudent means to instil into them a taste and relish for domestic life. The rational and satisfactory pleasures of a cheerful and happy home, will render them more cautious than they might otherwise be in the choice of their connexions,-better aware of what qualities are most requisite in fire-side companions, as well as more affectionate in their subsequent conduct towards them. Let their esteem for the sex be founded on the character of their mother, than which nothing can more effectually contribute to their individual respectability.

That familiar aphorism of Scripture, that "those who would have friends must shew themselves friendly," is in no instance more forcibly exemplified than in the intercourse between parents and children. She who would find a confidential friend in her

daughter, must previously set the example. Let that solace and security which during infancy she experienced in the maternal bosom, increase with her years. A morose and distant carriage is as inimical to filial confidence, as a trifling levity of manner, which forfeits all title to it. Where it does exist (as was before hinted,) it affords special opportunities for general instruction, and for conveying useful knowledge. Every new circumstance supplies matter for judicious observation, warning, or counsel. It is not so much by prosing lessons that young persons are essentially benefitted, as by appropriate hints resulting from the occasion, and skilfully applied according to the disposition and circumstances of the pupil, but it is obvious that the most entire cordiality is necessary to give opportunity for, or poignant effect to, such lessons.

It cannot be too frequently repeated, that one essential part of domestic education consists in rendering home agreeable; not, indeed, by those frivolities which the ignorant select for that purpose, but by those rational pleasures which are calculated to expand the mind, and give a right bias to the taste and

feelings even the remote effects of this are incalculable. To adopt the sentiments of a recent publication. "Let each individual have to look back with tender remembrance on the hours, the places, and the associates, where the world first dawned on his mental energies. In the journey of life he seems to draw a lengthened chain, from this innocent, this lovely region, to which the aged mind ever reverts with pleasure and complacency. The recollection of the playful sports of childhood solaces the imagination and the memory, in the evening of life, as if man, like a plant, were physically attached to the spot on which he blossomed."

Domestic felicity in early life restrains the passion for dissipation, and may prevent the forming improper connexions, which sometimes originate in the mere desire of quitting the paternal roof, and seeking that happiness from foreign sources which is not to be found at home. Early comfort diffuses an air of pleasing serenity over the whole deportment, and frequently renders the happy subject of it

proof against that irritableness, which the subsequent cares and sorrows of life are apt to engender.

The daughter who loves her home will take a lively interest in all its concerns, and be solicitous to promote the happiness of the little circle of which she forms a part; especially if her mother is able and willing to instruct and assist her. If she be desirous that her daughter should rank with herself in domestic qualifications, she will not, either by a false tenderness, or a criminal negligence, suffer her to remain ignorant of such things as her future station in life may require her to be acquainted with: this would not only render her helpless and ridiculous, in a situation the most responsible, but would be treating with the greatest ingratitude the man who lays his fortune and his future happiness and respectability at her daughter's feet. There are not wanting those, who have groaned under the effects of such maternal negligence for many years of married life.

Next in importance to religious instruction, is that general knowledge, that mental cultivation, which is to be obtained (and only

to be obtained) by habits of reading, and which must assuredly rank amongst the most indispensable qualifications of a female; not only to render her a suitable companion for an intelligent partner, but as it is eminently calculated to enable her to fulfil every duty of her station. We are aware that this assertion would surprise many mothers among the middling classes, who being destitute of these advantages themselves, ignorantly conclude that such pursuits must be inimical to domestic proficiency. It is granted, that incommon with any other desirable object, they may be suffered to engross an undue share of time and attention but the possibility of abusing a thing is no argument against it; and we are well persuaded that there is far less danger of this being the case with regard to mental improvement, than with some other things at which these same persons are not always so ready to take the alarm; frivolities, (which, if not encouraged in their daughters, are but too seldom discouraged by the mothers to whom we allude) are far more frequently found to interfere with, and to give a distaste to, the more important domestic