so far as she can, to think clearly on the subject for herself. She would do well to look carefully, candidly, and without bias, into that which she has to work upon. God has given her much to work with. Nature has placed the key to her precious treasure already in her hand. No other hand can so well unlock, no other eye can so well examine, the secret recesses of that little heart whose beatings she is so anxious to keep regular and true. Perhaps the most frequent and the most serious mistake made by the mother is one which has already been alluded to,-that the intellect alone consists of distinct faculties given for definite and specific use, and that the moral portion of our nature is to be understood as consisting in modes or manifestations of being. Thus we often hear it said that a man is conscientious or benevolent, but seldom that he has cultivated or used his conscientiousness or his benevolence. Owing to this mode of viewing the subject, a vast amount of confusion has become entangled with our notions of education, as well as with our ideas of what human nature is in itself. This confusion, however, would be of less importance, did it not extend over our views of the whole of that threefold system of which human character is composed; and when these views embrace the physical, the consequences are dangerous in the extreme. For example, the mother sometimes supposes that love is synonymous with kindness, or that affection recessarily includes benevolence and charity. She will sometimes speak of her child as being the most coaxing and caressing little creature,-so tenderly solicitous to be loved, so sweetly pained or cast down by seeing another preferred before it. It is worth considering, that all these, and many other pleasant and endearing manifestations of feeling, may belong entirely to the animal nature, and may, as the child grows up, grow also, and yet have nothing in themselves to prevent the child from being selfish, greedy, envious, requiring, spiteful,-it may be a perfect tyrant where he dares, or a sycophant where he has a selfish end to gain. Benevolence, when considered as a distinct faculty, is widely different from this. It has already been to some extent described in its nature and operation; and though it may be true that a very young child cannot easily be taught to feel benevolence, because its lower faculties are then all-powerful, yet the mistake must not be made of resting satisfied with its caresses, and supposing that because it seeks to be loved supremely, it will necessarily become generous in its own love, and disinterested in its own kindness. Many other mistakes of a similar nature to this are very liable to be made, and made chiefly because the mother's heart is naturally so full of hope, and love, and joy, that when she looks upon the treasure which God has committed to her trust, it is not with a scrutinizing eye-it cannot be still less is it with doubt that all will go well, where all is so perfect and so beautiful. What, then, is asked of the mother, is only to give to the moral nature of her child the same amount of attention and judicious care which she gives first to its physical frame, and afterwards, either in person or by deputy, to its intellectual powers. This, and a little looking around,—a little consideration of the world into which her child will have to enter, and where it will have to think, feel, and act,-of things as they actually are, not as she would like them to be, and especially of the moral progress for which her child must be fitted, unless she would be willing that it should be left behind, -this is surely not too much to ask of the mother, as belonging especially to her part in the training of youth. It is a vast as well as an important future into which the mother has to look, for it comprehends both worlds, -eternity as well as time. We do not educate for the past, scarcely for the present; for while we work, the plastic material changes in our hands, and the present glides away. We do not educate most certainly for the past, not even for the parents of the children themselves, but rather for those children's children. Thus education should ever be in advance of other institutions,-ever progressive, imbibing the tone and the spirit of the times only so far as to improve upon both, or to make the present the starting point for the great enterprise which the future has to carry on. To carry on!—that is the grand consideration,-not to be completed on this side eternity, no goal to be won,-no crown to be worn, only the same onward and upward progress, every summit gained, but shewing another pinnacle of that vast mountain whose topmost height reposes in the light of heaven. 171 CHAP. XII. THE GOVERNESS. ON tracing back to its commencement that most important process by which the education of character is carried on, we see clearly that upon parental love and care must devolve the most momentous and decisive part in this responsible work. But on looking at the world as it is, at our social affairs as they are actually conducted,-we see, also, that in this great work the father can generally do but little; and, for reasons which it might not be easy to obviate, the mother is frequently unable to do all. In aid of the mother the governess is called in, and thus upon these two-the mother and the governess-rests the chief burden of conducting the great work aright. It would seem from this view of the case, that whatever plans are formed, and whatever efforts are put forth for the improvement of education in general,—and especially for the introduction of a better system of moral training,-must be applied not so much to the child as to those to whom the training of the child is committed and this brings us directly to the elevation of women in general, and to that of governesses in particular. : To men of high scholastic attainments we look most frequently and appropriately for the teaching of classes, or of individuals, in what is generally understood by the higher branches of learning; but to accomplished and well-educated women,-filling the office of governesses, we look for a kind of social and domestic training, which, from the very nature and constitution of a large community, cannot so easily be carried on in schools. For the entire education of girls it is perhaps not possible to imagine anything better than this kind of home-training, under the watchful eye of an excellent mother and an equally excellent governess, with occasional assistance derived from the deeper research, or the closer application of masculine intellect. But while the advantages, as we view them from this side of the subject, appear unquestionably great, it should always be borne in mind, that whatever faults exist either in the mother or the governess, whatever peculiarities mark the household regulations of such a home,-whatever prejudices may warp the judgment, or narrowness of vision shut out the truth,-whatever, in short, is not quite as it ought to be within this limited sphere, will be likely to tell with much greater force upon the character of the child under this kind of tuition, than where there is the friction of numbers to wear off whatever is eccentric or peculiar, and the force of opinions gathered from many sources to expand the mind, and thus establish a more equal and enlightened mode of judging of things in general. There is in reality so much to be said both for and against home education, that it must ever remain to be a subject more fit for personal feeling, and individual choice, than for general discussion. And after all, for one domestic circle so constituted that all the advantages |