into this subject, without being aware of some of the great difficulties which lie in the way of moral training; and of these the greatest are acknowledged to be found in home influence;-I mean in the counteracting influence of ill-regulated homes. But then, on the other hand, the moral trainer can have no more efficient support than might be derived from the influence of home; so that it is to homes, after all, that we must look for those aids, without which education can effect but little good as regards the entire character.

This view of the case again takes us back to the beginning, back to the especial office and duty of woman in the great work of moral improvement; and under the strong conviction that our efforts must be more directed homewards than seems to be generally supposed, I would propose one more plan, which may not improperly come under the consideration of the structure of schools: I allude to the establishment of what might be called College Homes for governesses and young female servants.

We have already excellent institutions called governesses' homes, and others called governesses' colleges. My idea is to unite both under one large establishment, so constructed as to admit of separate families, or households, simply and economically conducted by the governesses themselves; and to each of these I would apportion a certain number of young female servants, who would thus be learning under safe protection, and in a pure moral atmosphere, the details and the routine of their future duties. The ladies of each little home would also be learning, on their part, those habits of economy and good management in which governesses are often almost unavoidably deficient. Under one

general centre of instruction I would include all that is now so ably taught by the means of lectures and classes, so that nothing should be wanting in the intellectual department. But the moral should be carried on more privately in those little homes or families which might comprehend from twelve to twenty members. Here, also, alternations of individual authority and degrees of progress might be so regulated, as that individual fitness for after duty should be distinctly ascertained, and marked by general and impartial division.

For the particular details of this plan I feel that this is not the place: I only bring it forward in this crude manner, because I believe it is one which might be made to reach two most important sections of society at once —that it might by the same structure of means be made to affect simultaneously a vast amount of good as regards the lady-mother, and the poor man's wife.

At present the advantages offered to governesses preparing for their duties are all, so far as I am acquainted with them, on the intellectual side. A college home, under judicious and able supervision, where they might reside entirely as members of distinct families, would not only elicit moral principle, but might be so constructed as actually to train morally for the highest duties in which an intelligent being can be engaged; and it would, in addition to many other advantages, possess that of bringing to light more clearly than can be the case under a training which is purely intellectual, those numberless peculiarities and tendencies of individual character which sometimes prevent the highest and the best cultivated talents from being available for social and domestic purposes.

And if this class of earnest and laborious workers

have especial claims upon our aid as well as our sympathy, it is scarcely less so with the young female servant, who has generally to make her way up to efficiency through a process of association often the most degrading to the moral nature which can well be imagined. And then we wonder, and complain, that honest, pure, and right-minded servants are so rarely to be found. If we look into those situations to which the needy parents are often compelled to consign their young daughters, we should wonder less at the gaping spectacle so often presented by the poor man's wife as she stands idle at her door, with an open ear for every slander, and a noisy tongue for every brawl. We wonder when we see these spectacles, perhaps still more so when we look into the poor man's dwelling, and we ask can such women possibly have been at school? At school they may have been, possibly at some school faithfully and earnestly conducted, maintained too at a vast outlay of individual and public means; but they have most of them had to pass through another kind of schooling, in which, under the pressure of severe necessity, a certain amount of physical dexterity had to be acquired before they were considered eligible for higher service.

As already said, this is not a fitting place for the more minute details of a plan to which I would still look hopefully, because it seems to embrace so much of what is wanted by society at large, under so simple and practical a form. Great facts already stand before us, proving what enlightened effort can effect. Why should we despair of being able to offer yet another means of help to those who are perhaps of all others least able to help themselves?

Nor should we suffer ourselves to be deterred from

this enterprise by its apparently humble beginning and obscure operation. We must remember that the young servant-girl becomes afterwards the poor man's wife, and that in such capacity there lies vested in her hands almost the whole of whatever direct moral means her home exercises over the lives and conduct of her children-her boys as well as her girls; and that they in their turn will rise up to exercise perhaps a better and a nobler influence upon another generation.

In the other case alluded to, we have results the most important to anticipate, whether we look to the middle or the higher classes of society, or even the poor; for the plan proposed would necessarily bear strict reference to those mutual obligations which lie between the mistress and the servant, and which involve so large an amount of influence either for good or for evil. But we have to consider especially, in this case, that the deepest moral impressions which human instrumentality can make, will in all probability impart a lasting character, not only to the amiable woman- the wife, the sister, or the daughter, but to the man of business-the lawyer, the physician, the divine, the statesman, the prince. That all ranks of society having received the moral impress, under the paternal roof, in their social relations, in the transactions of trade and commerce, and in the friendships of private life, on the public platform, and beside the peaceful hearth, will mutually aid each other in sustaining amongst themselves, and in working out for the general welfare, those high moral principles without which glory must ever be an empty show, prosperity a casket without its jewel, and religion nothing better than a name.

222

CHAP. XV.

STANDARD OF MERIT.

IN speaking of the difficulties which present themselves in connection with systematic moral training, it seems to be generally supposed that these lie entirely within the subject itself. Unquestionably such are to be found in sufficient force and number; but the difficulties to which I would more especially ask the attention of the reader lie without, and belong more to public feeling than to private effort.

It is true that public feeling is day by day increasing that amount of interest, and strengthening that concentration of attention, which the moral improvement of the people generally demands; but the whole force of popular effort appears to be so far directed and confined to the lowest grades of society; and while this remains to be the case, we can only hope in isolated instances to cure,—in none to prevent.

Public feeling has of late years been roused in no ordinary manner by the discovery of the fallacy of this rule when applied to the physical welfare of the community, and noble and enlightened efforts have been made, and are constantly being brought more and more into operation, for the preservation of the health of the people, while yet it may be called health; so that disease