over the country have a better training than that of their mothers. Perhaps there is some danger of going to the extreme of refinement, and undertaking to give grace, and polish, and embellishment beyond what the solid acquisition will bear.

Give your daughter the best education you can afford you can give her nothing better. And when I say the best education, I mean of course that which is most suited to her expectations in life, including in the term, not merely book-learning, but the household arts and the culture of the heart. There is tendency enough towards mere accomplishments, such as music, drawing, fancywork, and the like; so that I plead more earnestly for the solids. And with respect to the latter, it is certainly safer to err on the side of too much, than on that of too little. Any little excess of attainment will be easily forgotten and thrown off amidst the cares of a family. The wife and mother has far less time than the husband to make attainments in after life; she must therefore get as much as is possible before marriage. In most of the schools with which I am acquainted, girls have too many branches offered to their attention. A girl's education is usually considered as complete after a course of three or four years; yet in this brief period she is expected in some seminaries to acquire the same amount of learning which it takes boys three times as long to acquire; and this over and above a list of minor ornamental branches of which the value is commonly in the

*

inverse proportion of the cost. This has weighed heavily upon my mind for some years past; when I have seen the daughters of men who are frugal and practical in other matters, really cheated out of a good education by the quackery of a false system. The point of this rebuke is directed not so much against particular teachers, who will and must furnish what the public taste demands, as against those parents who are so foolish as to bring up their children on a diet of froth, flowers, and syllabub. No discreet parent surely will allow himself to look upon his daughter's education as a mere bait for suitors: he who does so is decking a victim for sacrifice. On the contrary, unless you can secure to your child a longer course of instruction than the average term, you will do well to limit her to a moderate number of branches, and these the most valuable, and to see that in these she is as thoroughly instructed as a boy would be in the same. Moreover, you will not allow yourself to be satisfied with the advertisements, circulars, or other professions of great schools, however fashionable, as to the choice of studies for your daughter, but will, after the best advice, select such a course as will promise discipline to her mind, and usefulness throughout life.

There is one more suggestion concerning this important subject, and then I leave your daughter to your own care: She should be well married. True enough! you will exclaim; but how is this

to be accomplished? I will tell you: not by manoeuvring, or match-making, or any mercenary or trade compact, such as, according to a hackneyed pun, may make “ matrimony a matter of money;" not by any measure to procure this or that man as a son-in-law. Your cares are to have another direction. Make your daughter all that it is in your power to make her, by education in its widest sense, and be assured she will never lack suitors. The great difficulty will be to prevent her being snatched away from you by some unworthy man. How shall this be prevented? Not, as I think, by laying a repressing hand of cold iron upon affections already formed. No! no! It is almost always too late when matters have reached this point. But a wise line of conduct will be preventive of a wrong alliance in two particulars. For, first, if you bring the girl up in right principles, with knowledge, modesty, and affectionate duty, she will be in little danger of suffering any passion to gain strength against the wishes of a parent. And, again, if a suitable guard be placed over her associations, she will be seldom in those companies where such alliances are most apt to be formed, and will thus be kept out of harm's way.

O mothers, mothers! how greatly are ye concerned in this matter! While you encourage these young creatures in superficial accomplishments, and bold display, you are often preparing

for them a lifetime of chagrin and misery. On the other hand, where you train them at your side, by precept and example, in retiring, industrious, studious, virtuous habits, you are preparing them to be " corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace."

VII.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.

"Much zeal in virtue's cause all teachers boast,
Though motives of mere lucre sway the most."

COWPER.

It is pleasing to observe, as education spreads its influence more and more widely, that the instructers of our children are rising in public estimation. It has not been many years since the very name of schoolmaster was a temptation to a sneer. Perhaps the fault was sometimes in the pedagogues themselves: they were not always learned, they were not always discreet. It was not indeed more common then, than now, for young men raw from college to teach for a year or two, until they might become clergymen, lawyers, or doctors; but while they did so they were not held in great veneration; and the older sort, who made it a business for life, were often bachelors, humorists, and pedants. In the very State in which I am writing, there is a township, in which a majority of the schoolmasters were drunkards; and that since the Revolution. Poor fellows! I might wonder how they continued to buy their drink, out of the pittance which they received for