its apostle like religion, it must send forth its missionaries in all directions to distribute publications by thousands, and to lecture every parent in the empire. Let the men of influence give their patronage, and the men of education their talents, to this great cause; let the ministers of the gospel make it a constant theme of instruction and exhortation; let all those who feel the benefits of education set to work in their respective localities by addressing parents either through the press or in public assemblies.

Extemporaneous lectures will, however, more effectually than printed pages combat the ignorance and rouse the apathy of parents in respect to education. The high office of educational missionary would, therefore, demand some powers of oratory. Many generous minds so gifted could be found willing to come forward in support of so noble a cause. Other persons could be appointed, and paid either by private associations or by the state; and, if economy were an object, the office of delivering public lectures on education might devolve on those who should be intrusted with the inspection of schools and the examination of candidates for the scholastic profession. If the educational missionaries are eminent in virtue and knowledge-if, above all, their hearts beat high with the desire of improving their fellowmen and elevating their own country, they will easily awaken and keep alive a public spirit of inquiry on the subject of education; they will enlighten the people on its importance both to the individual and to society; they will unfold all the objects of which it consists; they will impress on parents a consciousness of their duties, and of the qualities necessary for fulfilling them, dwelling especially on affection, gentleness, patience, consistency, justice, and firmness, as the most indispensable; they will, finally, unfold to them the manner of effectually accomplishing their arduous and responsible tasks in everything which concerns the physical, moral, and intellectual training of their children.

It is especially in youth that the future parent should imbibe the notions which he shall afterwards so much need. Education will reach its proper standard only when it is placed on a footing with the highest branches of knowledge. In schools for either sex,-in colleges and universities, the science of education in its three departments should be regularly taught in connection with physiology, ethics, and mental philosophy, as is the practice in some German universities. It should be made an indispensable part of a complete course of instruction.

If, by the active solicitude of a liberal and enlightened government, it were universally studied and well understood, parents would carefully prepare their children for the teacher, and aid him to promote their advancement. Thus the rising generation, under the influence of parental morality, early discipline, better systems of instruction, and the mutual regard, as well as combined efforts of parents and teachers, would, one day, by its progress in the various departments of education, raise the moral and intellectual character of the nation.

SECT. IV. THE MOTHER, THE NATURAL PRECEPTOR OF HER
CHILD. PREPARATION FOR THE OFFICE.

God has placed the child under the influence and guardianship of parental love, that he may through sympathy reciprocate that love, and early practise all duties, virtues, and affections thence arising. Nothing can be substituted for such a school; the pleasures which he enjoys there, the pains which he feels, the attentions which he receives or bestows, can never have their place supplied for the training of his mind and his heart. It is especially the mother who is his first preceptor. With sympathy as an interpreter, she enters into communion with her child; she becomes the most zealous of teachers, and he the most apt of pupils; she gives him his first ideas and inspires his first feelings; she actually begins to train her child from the moment he sees the light. The kindness or harshness of her looks, the gentleness or roughness of her tones, act upon his feelings, and hourly excite emotions of love or anger, of joy or sadness, which, perpetually returning, form the habitual character of the future man. The mother's smile gives the child his first glimpse of heaven, as the tenderness of her affection awakens his first conception of an all-bountiful Providence.

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Women dwell with interest and patience upon the trifles that make up the lives of children; and it is on the direction of these seeming trifles that their future greatness will depend. A kiss from my mother," said Benj. West, "made me a painter." When yet a child, he had drawn a rude sketch of an infant relation sleeping in a cradle: his mother chanced to see this childish production, and was so well pleased with it that she took the young artist in her arms and rapturously kissed him. That mark of maternal delight fixed his fate for life.

"The future destiny of a child," said Napoleon, " is always the work of his mother." He often declared that he was indebted to his own mother for his elevation. Remarking one day to Madame Campan, that the old systems of education were defective, he asked her what girls required in order to be well educated. "Mothers," was the answer. This word struck Napoleon. Well," said he, with his usual rapidity of thought, "this is a whole system of education. You must, madam, make mothers who know how to bring up their children." And he placed her at the head of the Ecouen Institution, which has since been so celebrated.

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To form mothers worthy of that name ought, indeed, to be the chief end proposed in female education. Every girl is called by nature to become a wife, and bring up a family; she should then be put in possession of the means to forward the best interest of a husband, and to prepare children for the studies of school and for the duties of social life. When a man of sense marries, it is a companion he wants, not an artist. "It is not merely a creature who can paint, and play, and dress, and dance," says Hannah More; "it is a being who can comfort and counsel him; one who can reason, and reflect, and feel, and judge, and act, and discourse, and discriminate; one who can assist him in his affairs, lighten his cares, soothe his sorrows, purify his joys, strengthen his principles, and educate his children." *

The mother has almost the exclusive direction of the young during the first twelve years-the most critical period of life; that in which habits are being formed and the most lasting impressions received. If her understanding be cultivated and her memory enriched with varied information, she will be able to draw from the resources of her mind endless means of exciting and gratifying the curiosity of her young pupils, of unfolding and improving their judgment. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the most talented women are not always the most agreeable in their domestic capacity. Moral, more than intellectual, excellence would secure to a mother the power of conferring happiness on those who surround her, and of exercising a proper influence over the youthful mind. "If, above all, the mother makes it a duty to stamp the divine impress deeply in the mind of her son, never can it be effaced by the hand of vice." + It is time to shake off the prejudice which condemns woman to a life of frivolity: she must be educated seriously; the

* Strictures of Female Education.

progress

† Jos. Demaistre, Soirées de St. Petersbourg.

of civilisation, by lowering the pretensions of physical force, has done away with the notion of her inferiority. She is the equal partner of man, and often takes an active part in the most important affairs of life: the well-being of society demands that her acquisitions be raised to a level with the intellectual and moral exigencies of the age,-in a word, that she be useful and estimable, as well as amiable and accomplished. She must acquire that vigour of intellect which will enable her to foresee, weigh, and determine justly those manifold circumstances on which her happiness and that of her family depend. "How can a woman educate children, if she is not accustomed to reflect? how determine what is suited to them? how incline them to virtues which she knows not, and to merit of which she has no idea? She can only flatter and threaten them, render them insolent or timid, affected apes or mischievous and despicable characters.”* The benefits of education will never be widely nor effectually diffused, until woman be qualified to lay its proper foundation.

Woman is endowed with the same faculties as man; the law of her culture ought to be the same. Perhaps her knowledge needs not to be as profound as his, but it ought to be as varied. In most cases man has a fixed vocation, which decides for him the departments of knowledge to which he should give his most serious attention; but the circumstances in which woman may be placed cannot be so well foreseen: it is then desirable that she should possess a facility of adapting herself to the various circumstances of this chequered life, as well as be able to initiate her young family into the elements of the different branches of instruction. Her moral and mental powers cannot be too carefully cultivated, nor her information too extensive, as a preparation for exercising with discernment the most important of social duties. The acquirements of a man are often profitable to himself alone; but every virtue, every acquisition of a woman is almost always profitable to her children. Many eminent men, besides Napoleon, might be mentioned, whose celebrity may chiefly be ascribed to the enlightened solicitude of their mothers. If that enchanting and undisputed power which women possess receives from our hands a salutary direction towards whatever is great and beautiful, they will repay us tenfold by leading the rising generation to that moral perfection so vainly sought after by philosophers.†

* J. J. Rousseau, Emile.

†The next Book will sufficiently show to mothers the nature and extent of the services which they, if well-informed, can render to their children.

SECT. V.-OF DOMESTIC EDUCATION.

Sympathy commences education in infancy; imitation continues it in childhood. The education of sympathy is almost the exclusive privilege of the mother in the first period: the father usually begins only in the second to exercise his influence actively, and from that period his authority gradually increases. At all times, however, both parents should, when circumstances permit, take an equal part in the moral and intellectual development of their young family without any distinction of sex. The notion often entertained that boys should be under the special government of their father, and girls under that of their mother, is unnatural and most injurious; for this division of government and parental duties not only disunites the different members of one family, but it takes from the affection, respect, and obedience due to both parents by all the children indiscriminately, and deprives the latter of the benefits arising from their combined influence. The sons depend as much as the daughters on a virtuous and pious mother for the formation of their moral habits, whilst the daughters claim, as well as the sons, from an enlightened father the direction of their intellectual training. It is, however, by their example, rather than by precept, that parents can best educate. Let them be and do what they wish the child to be and to do : let their actions be always consistent with their words; let them, in fact, take into their serious consideration that, by the force of sympathy and imitation, he receives from them, whether they will or not, the direction of his future character.

If men, in general, seek to excel their fellow-creatures in riches or in acquirements, and not in virtue or in piety, it is because, in their childhood, they frequently heard their parents speak of the advantages of fortune, and rarely of those of virtue; they were continually excited to vie with their fellow-students in learning, and never in morality or in piety. Most of the insubordination and bad habits of school-boys, most of the errors, prejudices, and evil propensities in society, nay, most of the crimes which are committed in the world, originate in the parents.

The future existence of a child is at the mercy of his parents; he will be what they make him. If everything in his father's house is done without system, it cannot be expected that he will acquire habits of order and regularity; if more attention is paid