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Hints to Young Ladies on Education.

It is an anxious happinesss-it is a fearful thing, When first the maiden's small white hand puts on the 'golden ring;

acter.

VOL. II.

That is still to be formed. And what if she is exposed to form it amid temptations thick and strong! Who would guarantee her integrity? But give her knowledge--that is power. Let her mind be strengthened by the conflicts of opinion, by the excitement of study, by the quickening influence of argumentation; let great principles be thus established, and her intellectual character formed and elevated by an education, which puts her on her own resources, and developes them.Can such a lady be imposed upon? No.

She passeth from her father's house unto another's Place her in any community, alone and friend

care;

HINTS TO YOUNG LADIES;

ON EDUCATION. Female education, even with all the improvements it has undergone in this enlightened age, is still very defective. The causes are few, and easily removed by the hands that move the springs of society. May I hint at some of those causes?

1. In the education of females, the place they are to occupy and the duties they are required to perform, are too much disregarded. In the first creation, Eve was made because it was not good that man should be alone. Possessed of a social principle, Adam needed so ciety. God, therefore, formed a companion for him, and gave her to the man. Thus plainly are her place and duties indicated in her original creation.

less. She has mind, she has knowledge--that is power. She can do something-that commands respect. She will be respected. She will receive attention. She is worth something to the world. She acts her part in the great business of life, and her actions tell on the great interests of man.

As intelligent and just views of truth are the best means of giving strength to the intellect, and firmness to purpose, it is plain, that the education of the mind forms the proper subject of female instruction. Yet how widely different from this is the practice of many parents, and the notions of many young ladies. Some seem never to have entertained the thought that the ordinary modes of education belong to them. I have seen some ladies, and mothers too, who seemed to think it vulgar for ladies to study. The idea of taking a part in the active duties of life hardly enters their minds. To rise before the sun, belongs, in their view, to poor people, hirelings, slaves. To be usefully employed in company, to be found with a book, or at work, would mortify them exceedingly. They live for-they know not what. They will diethey know not when. They will go-they seem to care not where.

A second mistake in female education is the neglect, or misdirection of the social principle. This principle may be regarded as That education, therefore, is manifestly de- one of the distinctive characteristics of man. fective, which fails to regulate, strengthen, It implies something more than brute instinct, and elevate the female mind. You must be and is elevated above mere animal pleasures. taught to think, to think seriously, to investi- It involves the exercise of the highest qualigate truth; to go down into the well where ties of the head and the heart, and originates it is said to be hid, and bring it up; to medi-a class of refined pleasures connected with tate, reflect, review your decisions, and act the immortality itself of the soul. Education, from rational conviction, intelligently, and then, should be employed to develope, exercise, from principle. and give direction to this principle, to distinLook at that thoughtless girl. What secu-guish it from mere animal feeling, to make it rity is there to her moral principles? She observe a moral effect, and connect it with may have formed no deliberate consent to sin. another and a nobler life. But she is thoughtless. She is a child of mere feeling. Innocent, perhaps, in her folly, yet what a subject for deception! How easily might the destroyer take her in his toils! She has always leaned on indulgent parents, or others, and has never thought of self-protection. She can hardly be said to have char

In social intercourse, the prescribed rules of etiquette are often an affectation of refinement at the expense of all comfort, improvement, business, and even truth itself. Whenever truth is sacrificed at the door, sacrilege and profanation will be deemed no crime in the temple. It is far better to turn your bolt on

No. 1.

Hints to Young Ladies; on Education.

17

the whole world, and be solitary, than vulgarly one of the thousand casualties constantly imfamiliar, or associated with unworthy com- pending, fail in business-must they not share panions. Even suitable associations are often his adversity? Let him die, and his estate be unprofitably conducted. Time is trifled away, represented insolvent-must they not beg and the door of improvement closed by a vis- their bread, or work for it? Do they not iter, to whose usurpations your civility yields. contribute their full share to success where Against such, is there no law? There cer- it comes, and by their assiduous services, tainly is. Introduce a profitable book. O, crown the blessing? And can these responthat will be very impolite. In whose judg-sibilities be discharged by a mere puppet, ment? By none, except those whose company you can well spare. They impose on you their authorship, and may you not in turn select yours, and introduce, if you please, another visiter? Change the conversation, that has became unprofitable. Insist on it. The premises are yours. If not, retire. Make your social intercourse profitable, at least not injurious.

But there are dangers and temptations in every house, not chargeable to visiters. With those who are always together, there is a strong temptation to seek after something new, to excite admiration or change the scene. Hence, slanders, exaggerations of truth, or glaring falsehoods, are often brought to the aid of a vacant mind.

a plaything? No. It requires a rational being, elevated in moral feeling, towering in intellect, rising with godlike man in his improvements. It requires a companion to do this. Is he not an intellectual being, and shall he be satisfied with the companionship of a mere animal? Is he, by the causes constantly operating in his sphere of duty, rising in the scale of intellectual being, and shall she not proceed "pari passu" as his companion? Can she otherwise hold his respect, or be worthy of his companionship? She cannot. Be assured, when their plays and days of falseness are over, the other sex will seek ladies of cultivated minds and thought, on whom to bestow their confidence, and receive to their companionship.

4. A fourth bar to female improvement is the slavish control of fashion. Some notions of what belongs to the claims of society, are set on foot often by the thoughtless, or those least worthy of regard. They are practised on by a few, reported by the loquacious, and finally required as necessary forms in society. These rules often come in conflict with every plan of intellectual improvement, and make mental dwarfs of our children. These children are thus early placed in the hand of intellectual nurses, who withhold all wholesome nutriment, and feed their immortal souls with the serpent's food.

Avoid the habit of ceaseless conversation on living characters. It cherishes a superficial manner of thinking, as well as a censorious disposition. Conversation, to be made profitable, must be mainly employed upon principles and facts; persons should be referred to incidentally, and with strict regard not only to truth, but candor and propriety.Some seem to think of little else than their neighbors. They are always in a state of excitement at the ordinary events of life.— A pruriency of thought, which requires restraint, is thereby sometimes betrayed even by young ladies, little calculated to recommend them to those whom they seek to please. 5. Parental indulgence is another serious As a remedy for these evils, which will be detriment to female education. Instead of encountered more or less in every family, I directing their children in their education, advise you, in the first place, learn to be silent. children often direct their parents. When a This is a lesson which costs nothing, and,||child is put to school, and the lessons become early taken, may be easily learnt, but rarely hard, she flinches. Then is the time for salattained, when an opposite habit has become utary discipline. But instead of commanding inveterate. As a second means of defence her to persevere, the parent announces to the against the evils of an ungoverned tongue, teacher that the dear creature is dissatisfied, have always some sober, profitable subject of and she must be withdrawn. Thus, before thought, which you may call up at pleasure. she has time to prove the pleasures of acquiGround pre-occupied is not so easily entered sition, she is taken from her studies with the upon. remembrance only that they are bitter.

6. The indiscreet flatteries of friends oppose another obstacle. As soon as a young lady can calculate the disbursement of her pin money, write a billet intelligibly, and finger the piano a little better than her grandmother, she is set up as a prodigy, and finishes her education.

3. A third cause for the defective education of females may be found in their imperfect apprehension of their own responsibilities.They too often entertain the notion, that as intellectual beings, it was not the design of Providence that they would associate with the lords of this lower world; and as to being helps to their lords, they think they were made only to be helped and waited upon. Fatal Be firm in your resolutions-but weigh well misapprehension! Let their protector, by before you resolve.

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The Early Dead-The Blind Boy.

THE EARLY DEAD.

There is a plaintive sweetness in the following (anony-
mous) stanzas, which goes directly to the heart.
He rests-but not the rest of sleep
Weighs down his sunken eyes,

The rigid slumber is too deep,

The calm too breathless lies!

VOL. II

more fervent love, if I could behold his wondrous works."

Mrs. Danville had seated herself, and the blind boy leaned against a pillar of the piazza while he spoke. But when he ended, he ran to his mother, and throwing himself on his knee beside her, burst into tears.

"Do not yield thus to unavailing grief, my

Shrunk are the wandering veins that streak Henry," said his tender parent, "and here

The fixed and marble brow; There is no life-flush on the cheekDeath! death! I know thee now!

Pale King of Terrors, thou art here
In all thy dark array:
But 'tis the living weep and fear
Beneath thine iron sway;-

Bring flowers and crown the Early Dead,
Their hour of bondage past:

But wo, for those who mourn and dread,
And linger till the last.

Spring hath its music and its bloom,
And morn its glorious light;
But still a shadow from the tomb,
A sadness and a blight,
Are ever on earth's loveliest things,
The breath of change is there,
And Death his dusky shadow flings
O'er all that's loved and fair.

So let it be-for ne'er on earth
Should man his home prepare;
The spirit feels its heavenly birth,
And spurns at mortal care,

Even when young Worth and Genius die
Let no vain tears be shed,

But bring bright wreaths of victory
And crown the Early Dead.

For the Ladies' Garland.

THE BLIND BOY. Mrs. Danville was standing on the steps of the piazza of her pleasant country house, with her youngest child, a fair, delicate, blind boy, standing by her side.

"How very beautiful is this scene," she said, raising her eyes to the blue firmament of heaven. "How very lovely is all around and above us! Oh, truly, His works declare Him! Henry, my love, can you not feel that this is a bright, a beautiful day?"

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comes Mary, with her light step, and happy voice, to cheer you;" as his sister, (a lovely girl of thirteen) came bounding towards them. See, mother, what beautiful flowers I have brought you," she exclaimed; and here are some too, Henry. Don't they smell sweet, dear brother? What! tears in your eyes! but dry them away quickly, and I will read you some poetry which I am sure will please you. I saw it in Sarah Conroy's Album, and got her to copy it for me. Here it is:

"I said I would love thee, in want or in wealth,
Through clouds, and through sunshine, in sickness, in
health:

And fear not, my love, when thy spirits are weak,
The troth I have plighted, I never will break.

"Aye, sickness: but sickness, it touches the heart
With a feeling where how many feelings have part;
There's a magic in soothing the wearisome hour,
Pity rears up the stem, and hope looks for the flower.
"The rose smells as sweetly in sunshine and air:
But the green house has all our affection and care;
The lark sings as sweetly while soaring above,
But the bird that we nurse is the bird that we love.

"I have loved thee in sickness, I'll love thee in health,
And if want be our portion, why love be our wealth;
Thy comfort in sorrow, thy stay when most weak-
The troth I have plighted, I never will break.”

"Do you not like that, mother!" asked Mary, raising her bright eye as she concluded, "particularly these lines; and she repeated— "There's a magic in soothing the wearisome hour;" and,

"The lark sings as sweetly while soaring above,
But the bird that we nurse is the bird that we love."

"How very true that is!-much as I always
love dear Henry, I think I feel towards him,
a deeper, purer affection, when he is almost
entirely dependant upon us, for his comfort.
Have you ever felt so, mother"

"Yes, my love, frequently."

"And he bears his many sufferings so patiently and quietly!" Mary continued, as she embraced her brother, "oh, Henry, will I ever be as good as you are?"

"Yes, I can feel, mother, though I cannot see," he answered sadly; "and yet so good has God been to me, in giving me friends, who, in some measure, supply the deficiency of sight, that I seldom feel a repining thought. Mrs. Danville was the widow of a revolu. But sometimes, when I hear the soft accents tionary officer; and, at the close of the war, of love, I have thought that if I could only after his death, she retired to her beautiful see yours and Mary's face, I would be too residence on the Potomac ; where she at this happy, and that I would worship God with || time lived, in peace and tranquility, superin

To Cecelia-The Sabbath Morn.